Thomas/Euclid is primarily an aerospace manufacturer — EV automotive parts are not the norm for the company. In this case, the job came about not long after the shop installed a MatsuuraMX 330 five-axis machine.

The new machine’s automation capacity enabled the shop to run many of the jobs previously on its five-axis Haas UMC 750 for longer periods, decreasing the time necessary to complete these jobs even as it left the UMC 750 idle.

Ryan Merrill, chief operating officer at Thomas/Euclid, says the search for additional work to put on the shop’s UMC 750 led the company to a customer already committed to machining EV strut housings.

Complications had arisen from the compressed timeframe to prepare for the job — the typical two-year development time for the part had been shortened to eight months — and a delay in receiving the five-axis machines the customer had been planning to use to machine the housings. Thomas/Euclid had the opportunity to act as a stopgap, delivering parts until its customer’s machines were up and running.

Another complication? Most shops that had been offered the job had already turned it down due to the nature of the part itself: a 20-inch-long, near-net aluminum casting with an odd shape and inconvenient tolerances.

​While the customer would provide the casting, and all Thomas/Euclid needed to do was machine holes in it, consistently gripping the part without marring and distorting it was a massive challenge.

Adhesive workholding offered a path forward, but not one Thomas/Euclid had used before. While the company had looked at Blue Photon’s adhesive grippers for several applications, the shop had always decided against using them due to the technology’s startup costs. With the EV strut job requiring a contactless workholding setup, however, Thomas/Euclid’s programmers and engineers were quick to point out that adhesive workholding was the most viable method for handling the job.
​
Properly attaching the Blue Photon grippers to the part required irregularly shaped fixtures for each of the four variants of the part (two operations, each with a left- and right-hand version). Blue Photon’s applications engineers volunteered to help, designing the fixtures for additive manufacturing and printing them through Stratasys. Thomas/Euclid then bolted the fixtures onto a quick-change base and screwed the Blue Photon grippers into the ends of the fixture.

After applying dime-sized dollops of the BlueGrip adhesive to the grippers, Thomas/Euclid’s machinists set the workpiece on the fixture and slid an ultraviolet light up from underneath. This light is connected to a magnetic rod, which snaps into place at the back of the gripper. After about a minute, the adhesive locks the part into place.
From here, the company was able to machine the part with no issues. Removing the part required loosening the grippers with a normal socket wrench, then using a handheld steamer to remove the residue from the Blue Photon grippers.

Due to the short run of the part, the shop was not able to automate this last step and therefore manually fixtured parts and changed over setups. Still, the combination of a quick-change base and adhesive workholding enabled the shop to perform these changeovers in about seven to 10 minutes while achieving a repeatability that other workholding methods could not match.

Thomas/Euclid has handed off the EV strut housing job to the original customer, but maintains its Blue Photon stock for suitable future projects.
​
“It was the first time our customer had ever worked with us. It was the first time we had ever worked with Blue Photon. We put a lot of trust and faith in each other that we were going to pull it off, and there were of course some road bumps along the way, but we pulled it off,” Merrill says. “It was incredibly impressive how well Blue Photon worked on this project.”

EDITED BY ANGELA OSBORNE   Managing Editor, Production Machining

Learn More at ​Workholding Fixture SystemsGrip Pallets

Blue Photon’s grippers are inserted into new external inserts, designed specifically for the Grip Pallets. The external inserts are available for use with small, medium and large grippers. The new inserts allow for simple installation of the grippers at the required height for maximum holding power.

The 150-mm square pallet is available in aluminum and steel with a 52-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to nine grippers. The 225-mm square pallet is available in aluminum and steel with a 96-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to 21 grippers. The 300-mm square pallet is available in aluminum with a 96-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to 33 grippers.
​
Each Grip Pallet includes two handles with multiple color choices and four spacers, with a 25.4-mm standoff that allows for the recommended nominal of 1-mm joint thickness between gripper and part.

​Optional clamp studs are available for both 52 mm and 96 mm patterns for 5th axis, Jergens, Lang and Mate systems. Part can be removed with a ¼ turn twist of the gripper or hot-water soak. Residual adhesive is removed by using a handheld steamer or a hot-water soak and a light peeling action.

Check out these details and more from the IMTS video below.

It's that time of year for IMTS!

​Here's a preview of some of the products that are going to be featured during the International Manufacturing Technology Show September 12-17.  You can see all of these new products and talk to the manufacturers in the Tooling & Workholding Systems Pavilion in the West Building Level 3. 

Supermini Set. Horn USA is featuring the Supermini tool holder system with face clamping as a set, in response to customer requests for different tooling system heights. With this holder variant, clamping is not carried out via the lateral surface of the cutting insert but via a clamping wedge on the face. This results in a greater holding force on the insert and thus high rigidity of the entire system. This increases repeatability when changing the insert and provides better utilization of the available space. This is a big time saver on Swiss-type lathes, as the user can change the cutting insert without removing the tool holder.

New carbide grades for system DAH8 - Horn USA is expanding its range of carbide grades for its DAH milling system to enable its use for machining a wider range of materials. The new grades SC6A and IG6B complement the tool system for high-feed milling. The SC6A grade is suitable for machining the ISO M material group, as well as ISO S materials as a secondary application. Horn has developed the IG6B grade for machining the ISO P group, while it is also suitable as a multipurpose grade for other material groups.

If you would like to learn more about any of these products or to see a demonstration, get in contact with us and we'll set up some time with you to visit your shop!

Edited by JENNY RUSH, Senior Managing Editor, Modern Machine Shop

Blue Photon’s grippers are inserted into new external inserts, designed specifically for the Grip Pallets. The external inserts are available for use with small, medium and large grippers. The new inserts allow for simple installation of the grippers at the required height for maximum holding power.

The 150-mm square pallet is available in aluminum and steel with a 52-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to nine grippers. The 225-mm square pallet is available in aluminum and steel with a 96-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to 21 grippers. The 300-mm square pallet is available in aluminum with a 96-mm pattern for a quick change receiver that will hold up to 33 grippers.
​
Each Grip Pallet includes two handles with multiple color choices and four spacers, with a 25.4-mm standoff that allows for the recommended nominal of 1-mm joint thickness between gripper and part.

​Optional clamp studs are available for both 52 mm and 96 mm patterns for 5th axis, Jergens, Lang and Mate systems. Part can be removed with a ¼ turn twist of the gripper or hot-water soak. Residual adhesive is removed by using a handheld steamer or a hot-water soak and a light peeling action. 

Watch the full episode covering workholding on Swarf Talk HERE
Swarf and Chips is sponsored by Intoco Special Steels and Alloys.
Courtesy of MTD CNC Media and Swarf and Chips.

Blue Photon manufactures a patented photo-activated adhesive workholding system in the U.S.

​They also offer fixture design and engineering for milling, turning, grinding, electrical discharge machining (EDM), 3D printing/additive manufacturing, laser, inspection and assembly applications for the aerospace, medical, optical, and robotic industries.

You can view or download the catalog below.

​For a more in-depth visual of how Blue Photon’s UV workholding technology is a solution to your workholding needs, check out their videos HERE. ​

​New optical workholding adhesives provide alternate solutions
to the challenges of traditional holding methods
written by Dan Billings & Shannon Osborn, Blue Photon 

New processes 

With new adhesives, traditional holding processes change. First, a thick layer of adhesive is applied between the part and holding device. Grippers are inserted into a fixture and can serve as the interface between the workpiece and holding device if needed. The workpiece is then secured to the grippers with the workholding adhesive, which is cured with UV light transmitted through the core of the gripper. The average tensile holding power of the gripper is between 200 and 605 lbs per adhesive joint and based on the size of the gripper selected. 

When the workpiece is loaded, UV light is either passed through the grippers or the workpiece material for 60 seconds to cure the workholding adhesive. Once cured, the workpiece is held in place securely, which allows for aggressive processing. The parts can then be removed from the holding device by hot water soak with a temperature between 170 and 200 ºF. The high temperature eliminates the need for toxic solvents and allows for faster release of the adhesive. Typical debonding time generally runs 2 to 5 minutes. Residual adhesive is easily removed by applying pressurized steam or hot water spray in conjunction with a gentle peeling action (Figure 4).