High Tech Turning
and the dimensions are honest and the fnished journals
have no taper or waviness. Mr. Woodward emphasizes
that this is being done with plain ceramic inserts costing
about $1 per edge, not PCD.
Among automotive industry suppliers, the production
of the U-joint trunnion is viciously competitive, such that
some very clever methods are employed. "One method is
the traditional indexing-on-the-fy chuck," Mr. Woodward
says. "Another is to crush-weld two lengths of barstock
across each other. In all cases, the tolerances are those of
the automotive industry—practical for multi-million-unit
production. Tat's a diferent animal from supplying parts
for hand-built race cars.
"Our competitors in the performance industry either
buy their trunnions or make them by inserting four pins
into a central block. Tat is known as 'block-and-pin'
construction and is how ordinary machinery U-joints are
usually made. In a small space, a one-piece hardened
alloy steel part is the strongest, but the real trick is making
a one-piece part not only accurate on the diameters,
but with opposite journals concentric and parallel, and
with all four accurately indexed at 90 degrees." Te prize
for solving that particular set of problems is leadership
in a niche market, which was hard-won and which Mr.
Woodward is not willing to give away by any means,
including fling for a patent on the method.
Considered purely by itself, the part cycle time
compared with the old method is about the same, except
that more cuts are taken in the same elapsed time.
Te real improvement is that the scrap rate because of
thermal efects has gone from more than 5 percent to
virtually zero and nobody gets tired. At the end of the
day, the company has about 50 percent more parts, all of
uniformly high quality, and this can be repeated indefnitely by any of the Woodward operators, with complete
confdence in the process.
For more information:
Hyundai WIA :: 201-636-5600
hyundai-wiamachine.com
Woodward Machine Corp. :: 307-472-0550
woodwardsteering.com
productionmachining.com :: 37