Production Machining - Your access to the precision machining industrial buyer.
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CASE IN POINT Diamond Tool Enables Company to Overcome Production Stop Edited by Lori Beckman ometimes the most experienced technicians or skilled toolmakers need to look to outside specialists when it comes to solving critical service problems. Such was the case when a well-known helicopter company was confronted with a problem with cleaning scale from a small, outsourced part that was preventing it from proceeding with production of its helicopters all over the world. Te problem was a carburized bearing surface delivered by a supplier of Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation (Stratford, Conn.), designers and builders of helicopters for commercial, industrial and military use. "We attempted to remove this scale with a carbide reamer and a diamond lap to no avail," says Tony Lawrence, tooling services manager for Sikorsky Product Center Core Services. "Te material in question was 9310 [alloy steel], and very hard—around 66RC [Rockwell C scale hardness]," Mr. Lawrence explains, which required a tool of equal toughness to do the job properly. He notes that his group had used diamond Flex-Hones, available from Brush Research Manufacturing (BRM) in a limited set of applications previously, but certainly not for this high volume situation they now faced. Te Flex-Hone is a ball-style tool characterized by a shaft with small, abrasive globules that are permanently S :: Sikorsky used the diamond Flex-Hone from Brush Research Manufacturing for surface fnishing operations such as deburring, edge blending and achieving a "near mirror" fnish of products with small cylindrical components or cavities. 46 PRODUCTION MACHINING :: AUGUST 2013