We put a lot of pride and care into our support rods. From start to finish, they’re machined, assembled, and shipped completely in-house. I’m excited to share the process of just one single component of the rods: the clevis.
Since our support rods are our “bread and butter”, our typical production run of clevises lasts about 24-32 hours. At two minutes apiece, thats just over 700 parts produced in a 24 hour period. The key to these efficient production runs lies in our bar-fed 4 axis lathe, which can machine the majority of the part in one operation, fully automated, with no human help.
First, material is loaded into the bar feeder magazine and automatically fed into the machine. From there, the machine performs the initial turning operations.
Our 4-axis capable CNC lathe precisely drills and mills the features of the clevis.
Two minutes later, the machine uses a parting tool to cut the completed part from the rest of the bar, and drops the clevis into the parts catcher.
Once the initial machining is complete, a worker meticulously deburrs each part, one by one, on a soft wheel.
Each part is loaded into a manual lathe where the back of the part is finished, the threaded hole is countersunk, and the part is inspected.
Finally, the clevises are assembled along with the rod ends, barrels, and pins to create the finished product.