Challenge

The arthroscopic shaver teeth are commonly produced by conventional abrasive grinding, wire EDM, or laser cutting; slow processes resulting in long cycle times. EDM and laser cutting burn away the metal at high temperatures leaving changes to the metal surface including a heat affected zone, recast, and slag. Laser cutting requires significant post processing to produce an acceptable sharp edge and surface finish. Conventional grinding requires a secondary process of deburring without damaging the cutting edge. It also involves frequent wheel dressing to maintain the correct form.

Design a process that can cut shaver teeth burr free, without recast, slag, or heat damage that improves cycle times.

Challenge

Tubes are cut one at a time using a standard abrasive cutting saw which leaves burrs. Requires secondary process of wire brushing and tumbling to deburr tubes and remove any debris. Older machines have poor accuracy and outdated safety features. Debris from abrasive cuts cause frequent maintenance issues.

Design a process that can cut multiple tubes burr free simultaneously without damage from debris. Reduce the number of steps in the production process. Provide a machine that won’t deteriorate over time.

Challenge:

The customer was outsourcing grinding of components and came to Glebar looking for a way to reduce lead times on parts, reduce costs, and bring grinding capability in-house.

Original challenge was to thrufeed 1-½” diameter, 15’ aluminum tubes removing 0.003”-0.006” per pass. The second requirement was for the machine to be capable of grinding 8’ steel tubes which featured a 1” diameter bearing surface in the middle of the tube which could not be ground. This meant that the grind would have to begin in the middle of the tube where the machine had to infeed into that section and then initiate a thrufeed process. The part also had a thin wall that had to be maintained and the grinding process had to be controlled to avoid burning.

To establish a process whereby pre-sintered carbide drill blanks processed in a hot isostatic press (HIP) can be pre-sized to produce straight rod stock for long blanks. The existing method of manufacture involves sintering the carbide rods in a hot isostatic press then grinding them to size in a hard state before the fluting operation is performed. This procedure requires multiple thrufeed grinding operations which is labor intensive and accelerates wear and tear to the grinding machine and tooling since the hard carbide usually has a non-uniform lumpy surface; furthermore several thrufeed passes are need post-sintering to size the carbide to its final diameter and to achieve the uniform diameter required.

Current Process:

A legacy thrufeed centerless grinder with a narrow work wheel is used. Multiple passes to grind the Nitinol tubes to size are required. Highly skilled technicians are necessary to ensure proper setup.

Challenges: 

Long cycle time limits output per shift. Multiple passes can reduce the quality of the tubes. Shorter work wheels apply too much pressure on thin-walled tubing resulting in deformed parts.

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: A food equipment manufacturer approached Glebar to improve productivity and reduce costs for their food filler machines. The metal spout requires grinding for several reasons. They come in contact with food, therefore requiring a smooth finish for sanitary purposes. The tubes are often exchanged on the machines to dispense various size pastries. Also, the mating housing for the spouts must be a close fit to prevent leaking and to keep appropriate content pressure to dispense the precise amounts.  Eight different components needed to be ground, all approximately four-inches in length, however they varied in diameters and weight. The variation of part geometries posed the biggest feeding challenge. Rapid changeover of grinding wheels was important to reduce setup time between the components. 

Challenge: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.

Challenge: To grind burnishing and expander rolls used in manufacturing tubes for a multitude of applications ranging from oil and gas tubes to automotive. Due to the shape of the parts which includes several tapers, the material removal is dramatic requiring several operations. Additionally the rolls are custom shapes so changeover between part types requires reshaping the grinding wheel. 

Challenge: Cycle time reduction and a sharp corner needed for a medical guidewire

Challenge: To end grind printed circuit board carbide drill blanks used by a major tool manufacturer to qualify the blank before fluting. The existing method relied on a batch process where parts were placed, a stack at a time, into a fixture and surface ground. Control over the length was highly dependent upon the setup of each batch in the machine, and length adjustment and perpendicularity were cumbersome to adjust for small diameter parts. Existing machines on the market were extremely large in comparison to the small diameter of the part to be processed, and were very expensive.

Challenge: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.

Challenge:  To size thin walled tubing used for surgical instruments insuring a mirror like 3Ra finish.

Challenge: To eliminate additional processes in the production of guidewires. The conventional process uses several machines to profile a shape in an interventional guidewire.

Challenge: A Medical device customer needed to rapidly changeover between a family of Nitinol guidewires having various lengths and geometries. Since the geometry of the components varied in length, the customer needed to change tooling over frequently, a process that can take up to 4 hours. Also, rapidly removing over 30% of the the material as it thrufeeds into the machine accelerated tool wear on the existing system and as tooling degrades, dimensional integrity suffers.

Challenge: Infeed grinding 0.010”  on two diameters over a 7” long metal drill blank in one operation while maintaining 0.0002” diameter accuracy, .00006 roundness and maintaining part straightness and concentricity.