The Dude
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2010
- Location
- Portland, OR
I'm in the process of helping a company evaluate/develop a custom drill/ream set-up. Long story short, it's not an operation they can easily perform on their existing equipment as the part is large, heavy (70 lb.), cumbersome and very low volume. They are currently doing it on a knee mill and it's rather unsafe and unproductive. The cost of a dedicated standard CNC machine would likely be cost-prohibitive and take up a lot of room. So far, this can be done without any complicated motions (the actual machining portion), it's a drill and tapered ream on each end of the part. The possibility of a combination drill/reamer has been brought up and just wanted to hear some thoughts on this (hopefully from experience). From my viewpoint, if successful, this would greatly reduce the complexity of the machine (i.e. if it had to change tools or use two spindles). Or, it would require a drill op for all the parts and then a ream op which would double the part handling time (not good!).
I don't know the exact dimensions but it is basically a hole for a tapered ball joint stud, similar in size to what you typically see on a 3/4 ton pickup. I did find one at dreamertool.com; looks like they've been making them for quite some time and they apparently just moved from NY down to good old OR! I will definitely make a call to these guys but I still want to hear opinions, hopefully backed up by experience.
Thanks,
The Dude
I don't know the exact dimensions but it is basically a hole for a tapered ball joint stud, similar in size to what you typically see on a 3/4 ton pickup. I did find one at dreamertool.com; looks like they've been making them for quite some time and they apparently just moved from NY down to good old OR! I will definitely make a call to these guys but I still want to hear opinions, hopefully backed up by experience.
Thanks,
The Dude