Unique Use of Vise Helps Shop Cut Maintenance Time

Belle City Metal Products found a unique way to keep their CNC Turret Punch Presses running with minimum downtime. By making use of a little ingenuity and a Heinrich Company vise, Belle City cut their tool-maintenance time by more than 75%. They also reduced CNC downtime by 50%.

As an OEM supplier, Belle City produces a wide variety of parts from stainless steel and aluminum sheets. The parts they make are used to manufacture heat transfer products, electrical cabinets, photography processing darkroom equipment, machine guards, and various types of brackets. These parts are produced on their CNC Turret Punch Presses, expensive machines where uptime is critical. Sharp punches and dies are needed to keep the machines running. This is especially true with thin material and in situations that are prone to slug pulling.

Mr. Lueke, president, credits the versatility of the Heinrich 6-SV Grip-Master Vise with enabling him to develop a timesaving tool-sharpening system. The vise's quick-acting locking mechanism, cast iron construction, and pass through space between guide bars make it easy to accommodate his unique fixture design.

Since a part can frequently require the CNC machine's maximum of 33 tools, the punches and dies need to be sharpened as quickly as possible to maintain high production levels. This is especially critical when punching holes in stainless steel sheets because of the material's high cost.

Mr. Lueke thought there had to be a less expensive way to sharpen his tools than purchasing automatic equipment that can run as high as $35,000. After a few trials he constructed just one fixture that can handle punches and dies across a broad range of sizes - using only equipment he already had in the shop: the
Heinrich 6-SV vise and a manual surface grinder. His investment was far less than $35,000.

The Heinrich 6-SV vise arrangement allows sharpening of the punch assembly without taking it apart. This saves a lot of time because a punch assembly has multiple pieces that need to be carefully reassembled.

Another feature of Mr. Lueke's fixturing is that the tops of the punch and die are about the same height when held in the vise. This results in very few hand turns for height adjustment of the grinding wheel. Also, most of the grinding can be done in a fast rough fashion before the slower final pass.

The vise can be taken off the grinder if the machine needs to be used for some other job. This adds to the system's versatility.

The end result is a tool sharpening system that is significantly less expensive than automatic quipment and faster by about 1-2 minutes for each tool.

Belle City Metal relies on Heinrich Company vises to stay competitive in the demanding requirements of OEM-parts production. The innovative alternative to sharpening tools using the 6-SV Vise developed by Belle City is paying off in faster part production and greater profit per job. A winning combination of product versatility and end-user ingenuity, this is just another way workholding products from Heinrich Company meet the demands of today's lean manufacturing environment.