Agricultural Reaper Part
The cast iron part shown here exemplifies our strength for manufacturing large, precision-cast parts that withstand the rigors of use in heavy duty agricultural equipment. On this project, we engaged with the customer early on in the process, which laid the groundwork for a very positive collaboration..
Our engineering staff worked closely with the client’s internal team to gain a full understanding of the parts functional and physical specifications. Through an interactive exchange of ideas, we developed a fabrication strategy that involved a combination of casting and 4-axis machining. This method allowed us to produce a part with excellent structural integrity and close tolerance accuracy at the least possible cost to the client.
Casting offers a good deal of design flexibility. Our tool and die designers configured the mold for maximum production efficiency and to lend a high degree of quality and uniformity to the molded product. Inside our foundry, we used precise process controls to provide consistency in the melt-pour process. This allowed us to reproduce the complex geometric features with excellent repeatability.
When completed, the cast form of the part weighed in excess of 75 lbs. We designed and manufactured a special hydraulic fixturing solution to hold the part securely and orient it accurately for the various machining processes. This enabled us to achieve the close ±0.001” tolerances the client was looking for on features as large as 15.00” and as small as 0.10".
Throughout the entire manufacturing process, we made repeated use of our high accuracy CMM equipment to continually assess both the dimensional and surface quality attributes of the workpiece. All of our foundry operations, as well as all of our machining processes, are managed by our ISO certified quality assurance procedures to ensure the integrity of everything we produce. Our technicians are trained in all aspects of QA and verification and confidently addressed all factors that affected the quality of the final workpiece.
Through the ingenuity of our process engineers and excellent skill level of our manufacturing team, we produced 50,000 of these large workpieces for the client at a very reasonable cost. Final inspections confirmed that the parts exhibited critical dimensional accuracy and an extremely high level of workmanship.
To learn more about this project or our processes, contact us today.