Product category:
Polishing, buffing and surface texturing
News Release from: Surtech Surface Technology Products | Subject: Manual polishing mops
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 December 2005
Re-assess manual polishing mops
With fewer operators willing to undertake traditional repetitive polishing, to avoid the work going to cheaper labour areas, a supplier suggests a bigger mops for easier working, better results.
The normal method of polishing employs a relatively small polishing mops of around 250 mm diameter running at a relatively fast speed of 2800 rev/min To learn to polish with this equipment takes months of training
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 1 Mar 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The operator has to be extremely careful how he presents the part to the mop.
If the part is presented below the centre of the mop, it can easily be ripped out of the operator's hands often resulting in personal injury.
Hand and wrist movements are frequent and vibrations are increased The contact area of the mop on the part is small, the fast speed creates a lot of heat.
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It is not easy to master the art of polishing with such fast running, relatively hard mops.
After making the training investment the employer has a high risk of loosing the now skilled worker and on top of it faces the risk of costly compensation claims for injuries due to repetitive motion and vibration.
As the old generation of polishers die out the new generation is unwilling to spend their lives with such a dirty, injury prone and fatiguing job.
A polishing labour shortage has already developed.
It is yet another one of many reasons why manufacturing is moving East.
Ironically the reduction in manufacturing activity has helped to disguise these labour shortages to some extent but it will become more apparent in future.
There are basically two ways to address this problem.
Invest in automatic polishing equipment, i e, CNC machines or robots or start using the more modern polishing system that has been in use on continental Europe for over a decade.
There is, in the UK, considerable unwillingness to invest in state of the art automatic polishing equipment and unless this attitude changes the second option could be a stop gap measure.
The new manual polishing method was developed as robot polishing was introduced over 10 years ago.
Robots need to work with as few tool changes as possible.
New, 960mm diameter polishing mops were the answer and it did not take long before polishers saw their benefits for manual polishing.
With a 960mm diameter polishing mop the arc of contact is large.
At low 300 to 500 rev/min the operator can completely immerse the part in the buff without fear of having it ripped from his hand.
Parts stay cool and handling is more comfortable.
Polishing time is dramatically reduced and much less effort is required by the operator.
Finishes are more uniform because the cotton used in the make up of these large mops is loom state and not the rags used for small diameter stitched mops.
Mop life of 2 to 4 months is not uncommon.
An unskilled operator can be trained in days rather than months.
There is just one problem with the cool running, 960mm dia mops.
Conventional polishing compound have a relatively high melting point and when used on slow running, large mops will tend to leave black streaks.
However, new polishing compounds with lower melting points have already been developed.
They have the added benefit of being easier to remove in subsequent cleaning operations.
The residual film melts at much lower temperatures facilitating removal in aqueous cleaning baths.
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