Project of the Week of 05/12/14

Project of the week is a 10 Station Filter Docking Press Station made of Acetal. This part is roughly 26" x 13" x 2-5/8" in size. This part is used to press and pressure test filter assemblies before being sent to replace in field equipment. Filter End Caps are pre-inserted and locked in place with a tab lock. We machined 4pcs for testing and a total of 16pcs when all modifications where completed.

End Mills, Bull Mills, Chamfer Mills and Special Form Mills were solid carbide from SGS Tool with standard High-Speed Drills, NPT Taps and Counter Bore tooling. We used Mic6 aluminum plate for fixturing in order to hold down and prevent the part from warping. Overall part tolerance was +/- 0.015 the machine finish with chamfer edges and machining marks for this part was expectable. All port tolerances were +/- 0.003 with a 63 Ra finish for the internal O-ring bores for liquid sealing. This part required a roughing phase and a 24hr set period out of the machine to reduce part deformation due to the large amount of plastic removed from one single side. A finale machining cycle was performed thereafter on flatness and port hole location and sizing. We must mention despite doing all operations and steps the same, we could not predict the internal stress of the raw stock and all the parts did finish up differently. We think this would have been better handled if the raw stock was annealed before finale machining operation. Part was still in tolerance but the thought of scrapping large blocks like this is always a concern. We would like to thank our customer for allowing us to share this project with people who value the manufacturing talent that is out there... If you have similar projects like this and would like to receive a quote from us, please reach out to us for further information.