The Importance of Warming Up Your Machine Tool Spindle
Over the past three decades, we’ve had a lot of conversations with countless clients and prospects. As you can imagine, they tend to revolve around spindles and spindle care. One topic that comes up regularly is the idea of doing a warmup cycle on your spindles. Responses have always been mixed — some do, some […]
Shipping a Spindle Out for Repair: Do’s and Don’ts
Typically made of high-strength steel, machine tool spindles are perceived to be solid, sturdy pieces of machinery. This is somewhat true, but spindle bearings and other mechanical components are high precision with tight tolerances as well as electrical components, all of which do not fare well under shock loads. So extra care must be taken […]
4 Ways to Manage Spindle Repair and Replacement (Part 2)
Welcome to the second installment of a 2 part series that focuses on minimizing downtime by strategically managing spindle service and repair. The Hotel Program Previously, we mentioned that storage considerations can prevent certain manufacturing locations from using the Spare Spindle Program. For them, the Hotel Program, sometimes called the Stocking Program, may be ideal. […]
4 Ways to Manage Spindle Repair and Replacement (Part 1)
Managing spindle service and repair — both in regards to scheduled or expected maintenance, and in surprise, unexpected maintenance — can be a surprisingly complex operation. Or a surprisingly simple one, depending on various factors and preferences. In an ideal situation, a good spindle service plan involves preventative maintenance, careful scheduling, backup spindles, storage considerations […]
The Key Ingredient to Improving Reliability Success in Your Machine Shop
One topic we hear more and more about these days is reliability. Essentially, this refers to initiatives designed to keep manufacturing facilities up and running efficiently and, well, reliably. It consists of several components such as predictive maintenance, planning, scheduling, data collection and analysis, and much more. Today, we’ll review a critical component to the […]
Achieving Cost Savings with Improved Maintenance and Cooperation
The push and pull between production teams and maintenance teams is a familiar story on shop floors across all sectors. Maintenance wants to keep machines running well, maximizing efficiency and lifespan; production wants a steady stream of finished parts going out the door. We all know who gets their way most often. Production, who tend […]
Achieving In-House Spindle Repair
No matter how built-out your in-house repair department is — how well-equipped or how well-staffed — there will be times when you need to outsource certain services, and source replacement parts. That’s a simple fact. Even union facilities, which mandate in-house repairs, need to outsource certain things they can’t do themselves, due to lack of […]
Monitoring Your Rotary Unions to Avoid Spindle Failure
For spindles that utilize through-tool coolant, rotary unions can be a common cause of failure. And yet, they are equally overlooked — few people include rotary unions on their periodic inspection routines. Rotary unions are specialty joints designed to allow connection of a stationary to a rotating piece of equipment. In spindle applications, rotary unions […]
Avoiding Spindle Failure by Understanding Vibration Analysis Thresholds
We know that small interruptions to productive work time are a hassle that nobody wants. That is why we often find that customers will ignore the alarm notifications when vibration testing is performed on their machinery. Frankly, we do understand the impulse. Why pull a machine out of service when everything seems, at face value, […]
The Importance of Drawbar Maintenance
Drawbars are the type of equipment component that are easy to not think about. Until something goes wrong with it, and you’re suddenly looking at considerable repair bills and potential downtime. In spindle applications, the toolholder does exactly that, holds the tool. Ironically, toolholders themselves have to be held. That’s where drawbars come into play. […]
