The broad range of industrial equipment and products available from online industrial supply companies gives manufacturers a huge range of hydraulic and pneumatic workholding devices and products to choose from. It’s more important than ever to use workholding tool and equipment based on your specific industry needs. The right workholding system protects your workers as well as your products such as clamps, vises, fixturing components, and other accessories. The best workholding solution will provide companies with precision milling and power production for all types of industrial products and materials.

The Right Tool For The Right Job

When a part needs to be held more securely than possible with a current vise, workers have been known to use cheater bars to push the workholding equipment past its design limits. Using this extension on a vise handle gives them more leverage so they can make the vise grip tighter. Pushing any tool past its limits leads to problems. This equipment is tough but can still fail if abused. Workers endanger their safety with these operations as well.

If a shop needs a high pressure vise then a standard one won’t do. Workholding equipment with hydraulics can provide a tighter grip on heavy parts without fatiguing or endangering workers. Hydraulic workholding devices such as hydraulic edge clamps provide a power boost to the clamping force and can hold equipment for hours without moving.

At the other end of the spectrum are smaller, delicate parts. Using high capacity vises to hold fragile parts guarantees a lot of broken products, wasted money and frustrated workers. Clamps designed for small scale operations can hold a slim piece tightly enough to allow precision machining, but carefully enough to ensure no damage to the piece.

Hold It Steady

Workholding tools are used most often to keep a part from moving during machining. The oldest examples were used by craftsmen — from blacksmiths making wagon wheels to artisans using soft precious metals to make jewelry. However even the smallest pieces had what is by today’s standards, huge tolerances.

It isn’t unusual even for smaller shops to be machining parts to precisions unimaginable a few years ago. Computerized milling machines have come way down in price and are no longer used only by large operations. The widespread availability of the equipment has made customers more demanding. Machining formerly done to tolerances of tenths of an inch now requires thousandths of an inch precision.

The most careful and precise machine made can’t meet these tolerances unless the part is held perfectly still. Older industrial clamps and other workholding solutions may not be up to the demands of modern machining. Manufacturers have to use tools that can hold the part with absolutely no undesired movement.

Using the right clamps ultimately saves the company money. When an operation has to throw out a third of items produced because they don’t meet specs, it is material and time wasted. By investing in modern, high-precision workholding solutions the company has far fewer parts going to the reject bin and the new equipment pays for itself in no time.

Plan For The Future

Manufacturers should regularly evaluate their workholding equipment to be sure it is up to not only current needs but future needs. Businesses should consider markets other than their current customers. Offering a diversified line of products and services allows companies to ride out changing customer needs and economic conditions. When it’s time to purchase new industrial equipment, products, tools, or parts, the best investment a company can make is to purchase a workholding system. Money wisely spent on the proper workholding equipment and other industrial supplies will serve both current and future company and worker needs.

Workholding should be planned with an eye for the future. Machining technology changes and companies poised to take advantage of new trends will benefit from them the most, filling new product markets while competitors are still figuring out what is going on. As an example, machining tolerances are only going to get tighter in the future so high-precision clamps will be in greater demand.

Clamps and vises are tough but like any mechanical system they can wear out with time. They may not provide the pressure they once did and that can lead to parts slipping during machining. At best this means a ruined part and wasted money. At worst it leads to serious worker injury or damage to expensive equipment. Failing workholding tools can sometimes be detected when a production line starts putting out a higher number of reject parts, but regular inspections are still a vital part of efficient machine operation and worker safety.

Even if not needed for current operations, a company might consider purchasing basic tooling components and workholding devices such as high-precision vises and high-power hydraulic clamps. These workholding systems can accommodate product growth without sacrificing precision milling and compromising worker safety protection. These workholding solutions provide the required precision machining necessary for a company to reach the ultimate goal of expanding production.

Greg Palmer is an author for Reid Supply Company, an industrial supplies distribution company with a 60 year history supplying customers in all 50 states and over 40 countries with industrial equipment and products such as industrial clamps, workholding devices, and free CAD drawings.

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