Timesaver for Polishing Flat Steel

Hi Everyone!

I have some flat steel parts that need to be polished to about 16 microINCH. They are about one foot long and two inches wide. I am looking at a dual-head 9" wet polisher. The parts need a few different belts to get to the finish we require and the samples I send to Timesaver came back looking great! (...but don't samples always look great!? )

Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with Timesaver IN GENERAL they could share(not necessarily trying to achieve a 16Ra on steel parts that are one foot long, etc.) Are they well-built? Are they easy to work with? Etc.

Thank you!

What sort of flatness do you need? Is this just cosmetic? Did you see any edge roll-over on the parts you got back?

I've never heard any bad stuff about Timesaver, but I'd want a full understanding of all the maintenance and cleaning associated with the machine to keep everything running right. Floor space, electrical and air (if needed) yearly operating budget, etc.

Depending on how many of these parts you're running, you may be better off handing them to a specialist finishing company rather than DIY.

Milland said:

What sort of flatness do you need? Is this just cosmetic? Did you see any edge roll-over on the parts you got back?

I've never heard any bad stuff about Timesaver, but I'd want a full understanding of all the maintenance and cleaning associated with the machine to keep everything running right. Floor space, electrical and air (if needed) yearly operating budget, etc.

Depending on how many of these parts you're running, you may be better off handing them to a specialist finishing company rather than DIY.

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I'm happy you haven't heard anything bad about Timesaver! It's just cosmetic to make it shiny before plating. I didn't see any roll-over on the samples. We pretty much do everything in-house and have hand-ground these parts for decades, so hopefully this would just standardize and simplify the process and make it safer, too!

Thanks!

Nerdlinger said:

I'm happy you haven't heard anything bad about Timesaver! It's just cosmetic to make it shiny before plating. I didn't see any roll-over on the samples. We pretty much do everything in-house and have hand-ground these parts for decades, so hopefully this would just standardize and simplify the process and make it safer, too!

Thanks!

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Heh - I hope you'll get a better sample size than just me. If you go this route, let us know how it works out for you, maybe with some pics.

Nerdlinger, Did you end up buying one? We have a similar reoccurring job and are looking at options to speed things up.

LOTT said:

Nerdlinger, Did you end up buying one? We have a similar reoccurring job and are looking at options to speed things up.

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Not yet...it’s a “probably” at this point. The first batch of parts looked good and I am expecting a second batch of different sample parts (1/8” 1050 plate about the size of your hand) any day now. Honestly it’s just hard buying a machine we really can’t see (IMTS would have been great!) Like it would be nice to grab it and shake it just to see how tight or flimsy it is ya know? I’ll report back if/when we get it. Good luck!

Nerdlinger said:

Hi Everyone!

I have some flat steel parts that need to be polished to about 16 microINCH. They are about one foot long and two inches wide. I am looking at a dual-head 9" wet polisher. The parts need a few different belts to get to the finish we require and the samples I send to Timesaver came back looking great! (...but don't samples always look great!? )

Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with Timesaver IN GENERAL they could share(not necessarily trying to achieve a 16Ra on steel parts that are one foot long, etc.) Are they well-built? Are they easy to work with? Etc.

Thank you!

Click to expand...

I would be rather careful with this as you really need to know what Timesaver did as a process to get the results of the samples you received back.

The rolled edge issue is a result of the drive roll hardness, the stock removal rate, and the particular abrasive belt chosen. The less passes required, the worse the rolled edge will likely be.

The drive roll hardness has a huge effect on the stock removal rate. Unfortunately the drive roll is expensive and time consuming to swap out. Also do not discount the time it takes to swap out the abrasive belt for grit changes.

The problem with samples from a manufacturer without an exact process specified on a finished part is that say for instance they used a hard roller and a fine grit and removed a minimal amount of stock but it takes them 12 passes to do it. Without the process described in detail, you have no way to know if the process is actually economically viable.

Timesaver dose make a good machine however they are trying to sell you a machine and since you are asking this question, I am assuming you have very little experience with using a belt polishing process to get the desired end product.

The 16ra is going to be a challenge depending on initial material surface condition and the minimal number of passes that you need to do it in.

One factor that you might not have thought of with the wet process is that a coolant filtration system that works well will be imperative for the desired surface finish. This will probably add a cost to the part that you might not be considering as the filter media consumption cost is influenced by the particulate size from the abrasive operation.

Ziggy, thanks for the info. Are there any competing brands to be aware of other than Timesaver?

LOTT said:

Ziggy, thanks for the info. Are there any competing brands to be aware of other than Timesaver?

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There are but I have not been keeping track. There has been a lot of consolidation in the industry.

Of course there are some lower priced units that are also lower quality. On some of these the tracking mechanism is prone to wear and can be problematic. A lot of this depends on the width of the upper and lower rolls.

Wider belts tend to be more sensitive to tracking issues as they do need to have a degree of oscillation from side to side to maximize belt wear. You want a slow oscillation and some of the tracking control methods can be tricky to maintain for repeatable operation.

With any belt polisher such as the Timesaver, you need to match the maximum sized part to the belt width. Wide belts tend to waste more abrasive belts than narrower machines that sized for the exact part. The problem with this is that the roll width limits the maximum part size.

Did they do a polish operation on your sample parts? Why I ask is that we used to do some parts that were to be plated and we used a couple of passes under a polishing wheel for final finish which is another machine and another operation before plating.

I would encourage you to actually spend the money to go see exactly what you are getting into with your parts. What they are accomplishing with their experience and time might not fit your needs. Nothing against anyone but sales people are sales people and samples are samples and once you purchase the machine you own everything. There is a learning curve that can be steep depending on your core knowledge.

Blowing a wide belt on the first pass of a new part is not cheap and if you groove the drive roll from the part, will require dressing the roll.

Not trying to scare you, just want you to understand that this is different than a person polishing the parts by hand. The human has control over multiple variables in real time so that is a more flexible operation with possible high variability.

The belt polisher will be very consistent once you have the process down but will require tweaking when doing different parts and that will require a knowledgeable person. A good experienced hand polisher may or may not make a good belt machine operator.

Ziggy2 said:

...I would be rather careful with this as you really need to know what Timesaver did as a process to get the results
of the samples you received back...

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Ziggy2 said:

...I would encourage you to actually spend the money to go see exactly what you are getting into with your parts.
What they are accomplishing with their experience and time might not fit your needs. Nothing against anyone
but sales people are sales people and samples are samples and once you purchase the machine you own
verything. There is a learning curve that can be steep depending on your core knowledge...

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I very much agree with both of these thoughts. They are giving you samples that are exactly what you need but if
their process is too long or complicated you may not be able to duplicate it in a cost effective way...

Thank you for the reply, Ziggy!

Timesavers included their process spec (belt, number of passes, and feed rate) with the sample report. My parts aren’t perfectly flat so I made sure to send them some at the outside limits of our process tolerance to make sure they’re weren’t, say, burned in the middle when parts are belly-up. They looked great, so unless they are lying about their process specs I would want to determine (or at least estimate) 1) how many parts we can expect out of the belts and 2) if the machines are well-built in general.

So far it sounds like they have a good reputation. We have been hand grinding/polishing/plating a variety of parts for decades so we are pretty okay with different abrasive technologies, different durometer backing wheels/drums, buffing wheels, compounds, etc. and the process they claimed seems reasonable so I believe them there, too.

The machine we are looking at is wet, and you bring up a good point about filter cost. That being said, if the machine works as well as we are hoping it may only run for like 2 hrs per day so I expect relatively-infrequent maintenance.

The parts DO get buffed prior to playing but that is a sensitive process that we are going to keep doing by hand for now, so the idea is for the Timersaver to just do the “grinding” and not the “polishing.”

Have you worked on a Timesaver??

Thanks, again!

So we finally got back to this project but Timesaver's lead time is 24 weeks for the machine we want. Does anyone know of alternative machine builders I could check out? I've had a hard time knowing what exactly to call these machines for a helpful Google search..."vertical belt sanding machine with...auto...conveyor...belt...for metal.."

Wide belt sander

Nerdlinger said:

So we finally got back to this project but Timesaver's lead time is 24 weeks for the machine we want. Does anyone know of alternative machine builders I could check out? I've had a hard time knowing what exactly to call these machines for a helpful Google search..."vertical belt sanding machine with...auto...conveyor...belt...for metal.."

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Jeez, man - it's been two years. I'd have a chat with your procurement manager...

[If it's you I'd take myself out for a beer, because well, it's never our fault]

Milland said:

Jeez, man - it's been two years. I'd have a chat with your procurement manager...

[If it's you I'd take myself out for a beer, because well, it's never our fault]

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But 24 weeks for machine!

Milland said:

Jeez, man - it's been two years. I'd have a chat with your procurement manager...

[If it's you I'd take myself out for a beer, because well, it's never our fault]

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Haha, yeah a lot of "life" happened the past couple years.

"Wide Belt Sander" yielded a lot of results, MemphisJed, so thank you! That being said, Timesaver did not show up under that search so I suspect we're still not quite hitting Google's g-spot. Either way I've got a lot more to compare to than I did an hour ago so, again, thank you!

memphisjed said:

But 24 weeks for machine!

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Hey, the Timesaver tree was blown down during the last hurricane, and it takes time for another to be grown. What can I say...

[Although, with a name like "Timesaver", it does go against the idea of taking a while to get one]

I did not buy mine new, but I grew to hate the wide-belt sander that I had purchased for brushing stainless parts...and grew to hate it fast! Finicky thing that was! I would also be running through pieces of material that were $1000-2500 a piece (large and other labor sunk into), and one mess up with the sander leaving a gouge would ruin my day easy.

For my application I sold the wide-belt, and am in the process of switching to a stroke sander. (look at Doucet for some good stroke sander application videos) Probably not best for what you are doing, but food for thought.

I've seen stroke sanders in use (but not run one), and IMO they're more labor and somewhat less safe that a properly run Timesaver or equivalent. I'd also think that the Timesaver can be more consistent if in good shape, although the stroke sander gives you more flexibility to adjust on the fly.

You might check out Weber.