At American Industrial, one of the reasons that customers keep coming back to us with more and more challenging work is our people. We employ a large staff of dedicated and technically knowledgeable manufacturing engineers, machinists, and technicians.
This resource is the true key to our continued success. When combined with our extensive manufacturing capabilities that include a facility filled with cutting edge forming and machining equipment, we are truly a unique resource for high precision manufacturing. All of this together allows us to deliver tight tolerance parts that are competitively priced and delivered on schedule.
In the project highlighted here, we were contracted by a customer in the power tool industry to manufacture a custom retaining ring and sleeve. This project represents a high volume run, consisting of a total of 750,000 finished pieces. Production started as usual, with well-designed dies. The die set was used on one of our high speed and highly advanced stamping presses. With this type of volume, speed would be critical, as well as precision. Our cutting edge equipment enabled us to achieve the fast cycle times we needed to be profitable, as well as meeting the very tight tolerances of ±.0005″ that the customer required.
The finished retaining ring and sleeve featured final dimensions of 3.0″ in diameter and 0.403″ in thickness. Another factor in the success of this project was the material selection; these parts were formed from 1050 annealed steel.
This provided the strength required for the customer, and enough ductility to allow for easy forming. Once formed and inspected, the parts were subject to a tempering process called austempering. This brought the parts up to a 37-42 Rockwell hardness, which imparted the added strength that the application required. After a zinc plating, we applied a black oxide finish for added corrosion protection.
Throughout this project, our quality program was in high gear, and as an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, the customer was assured that each part would pass the most comprehensive dimensional and visual inspections. These inspections were carried at all critical phases of production to ensure that the products met the high quality standards of the customer specification and our own even higher standards. From the first part to the last, their precision construction ensured a long lifetime of reliable use.
If you are interested in learning more about this project or the processes used to manufacture them, see the table below. To learn more about how American Industrial can drive out cost from your next project, contact us directly.
