1: FlexArm tapping arms are designed to make tapping easy and quick. Adjustable gas counter-balanced springs allow an operator to position the tap over a hole without straining or fatigue.
2: Mountain Empire Anodizing and Metal Finishing has a 40' anodizing tank-the longest in the Southeast.
3: Charlie Roe appreciates how easy it is to operate the FlexArm. "You do not need to be a machinist; anyone can operate it," he said.
Mountain Empire Anodizing and Metal Finishing is playing the long game. They attract customers with their capabilities and fair pricing, then with excellent service, generally keep them forever. They also have a 40' anodizing tank-the longest in the Southeast-that helps them to win business coating lengthy products such as stadium seats, aviation and marine components, handrails, flagpoles, extrusions, architectural products and more.
Holding those workpieces requires extensive fixturing, which in turn requires a lot of drilling and tapping. Mountain Empire typically works with smaller size holes-often 1024s and 832s, which they were tapping using their CNC machine. But a discussion Owner Charlie Roe had at Precision Technologies, a machine shop that he had recently purchased, changed his viewpoint on online versus offline tapping. The company had a pair of FlexArm units and demonstrated them to Roe, making him a believer. So, when Roe won a big project that involved tapping 517 10-32 holes in aluminum and steel, he purchased a FlexArm for the Mountain Empire location.
"I was amazed at how much faster tapping offline really is. Tapping offline is 10x faster," Roe said. "The FlexArm paid for itself with that first job." At a billing rate of $75 per hour, that speed advantage quickly adds up to bottom line savings. "Now we keep our CNC running on other jobs, and we use the FlexArm to tap offline, so it is like running two jobs at the same time," Roe said.
Roe especially appreciates how easy it is to operate the FlexArm. "You do not need to be a machinist; anyone can operate it," he said.
In addition to getting the jobs done faster by tapping offline, allowing non-machinists to run the FlexArm enhances Mountain Empire's overall efficiency and helps to control costs.
"The speed is great, and my crews are no longer scrapping fixtures," said Roe. Previously, when a hole was cross-threaded or a tap broke within the fixture, that fixture was likely going to be discarded. Although they are producing the fixturing in-house, scrapping damaged fixtures was a waste of time and material.
"Broken taps are expensive," said Roe. "In addition to the hard cost of replacing the tap, you have to account for the time to remove it and the attempt to salvage the part."
Tapping, Not Scrapping
FlexArm tapping arms are designed to make tapping easy and quick. Adjustable gas counter-balanced springs allow an operator to position the tap over a hole without straining or fatigue. The tool absorbs the torque created by the motor, increasing tap accuracy. The pneumatic model A-32 that Mountain Empire purchased has a 400 RPM motor that delivers 28 ft-lbs. of torque and has 9/16" tap capacity.
An adjustable torque clutch allows the tap to stop turning when it encounters any obstruction that might cause breakage, significantly reducing the likelihood of breaking a tap. While a CNC machine averages a broken tap every 300 holes, a FlexArm can go 3,000 holes without breaking a tap.
That first job was an eye-opener for Roe and his team. Now they rarely tap anything on their CNC machine, preferring to utilize it for value added steps for which it is best suited. They perform all of the tapping operations offline, using an operator rather than a machinist. With the FlexArm placed on a cart for easy transport within the shop, they can move the cart to the workpiece, drill, tap and then move on to the next project.
The workload varies with the projects, and Roe estimates that they tap from 25 to 200 holes a week. Whether they are tapping numerous holes in a complicated fixture to hold an aerospace cowling, or tapping a single hole in a component for the Metal Finishing division, virtually all of the tapping goes through the FlexArm.
Efficiency is key for Roe and his team, because it allows them to secure more projects from the various industries they serve. "Keeping customers satisfied with fair pricing and excellent service is our ultimate goal," said Roe.
For more information contact:
Mountain Empire Anodizing
and Metal Finishing
687 Industrial Park Rd.
Piney Flats, TN 37686
423-538-3406
sales@mountainempireanodizing.com
www.mountainempireanodizing.com
FlexArm, Inc.
851 Industrial Drive
Wapakoneta, OH 45895
800-837-2503
flexarm@flexarminc.com
www.flexarminc.com