Thermal deburring automates gear finishing

Transmissions component manufacturer found that thermal deburring process gave a quick, efficient process that saved the time consuming job of brushing every individual tooth.

Beard and Fitch, based in Harlow, Essex, UK, has been in business for over 150 years manufacturing transmission component for a wide range of applications from high performance cars to large industrial diesel engines.

The company is still grasping new technology.

In their continuing quest to improve quality and efficiency they have introduced thermal deburring to automate the burr removal from their double gears.

"Deburring gears have always been time consuming, but over our 150 year history we have obviously refined in-house systems to minimise the time taken and to improve the finish.

However these double gears have impossible to reach burrs, and we're ending up chasing individual burrs between each tooth.

Our frustrations increased no end and finally caused us to look elsewhere for help," said Michael Jackson, the production manager.

"We came across thermal deburring by chance in an article in a trade magazine.

You very rarely read articles on deburring issues so it caught my eye".

He continued: "It was a delight to discover a quick, efficient process that saved us the time consuming job of brushing every individual tooth.

The quality and consistency has been substantially improved.

And despite the extra logistics of sub-contract, it has actually saved costs and given us a better product".

Deburring team leader, Carol Cooper, stated: "Problem jobs like the one tackled by the Deburring Centre impact on the efficiency of the section, by solving this problem we are able to concentrate on our regular work at a time when we are very busy".

* Smallest features readily accessed - the reason for thermal's success is that by using a gas/oxygen mixture, no hole or feature is too small to access, and every burr is guaranteed to be surrounded.

The process works so effectively because burrs are unable to dissipate the heat generated when the mixture is ignited.

During this 20 millisecond blast of heat the burr's temperature quickly exceed the material's ignition point and they oxidise.

Starting with the smallest, most inaccessible burrs first, they literally disappear which promotes the claim of guaranteeing the 100% removal of all potential loose parts".

""And if it doesn't come off in our explosion it won't come off in service," said Martin Bridges, the sales manager at Deburring Centre.

Thermal deburring has been around for 40 years but has a much maligned character, said the Deburring Centre to manufacturingtalk.com.

Admittedly, if machines are set wrong (like any machine) disastrous results can happen.

However, Deburring Centre have over 11 years experience in successfully deburring 1,000 of different components for a number of clients.

Hy-Pro is just one more in a long list of satisfied customers due to going back to first principles and looking again.

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