Real parts, real difficulty, real route. Photographed at the shop, never with a customer name.
Case studies
Customer names are never published. What is published is the part, the material, the process route and the specific difficulty — because that is what tells you whether we have met your problem before. Photographs show representative parts from the same process route, not the customer’s own part.
Long, slim part with a ground seal diameter and threads at both ends.
| Material | Alloy steel, heat treated |
| Route | Turning → heat treatment → OD grinding → thread milling |
The problem. The part distorted during heat treatment and the sealing diameter went out of round. Sequence was changed so grinding happens after hardening, which corrected the distortion instead of scrapping the batch.
What that came from. Turning + OD grinding + milling, in one shop, meant the datum chain survived the heat-treatment step.
Small stainless part with a seated bore that a contact pin has to sit true in.
| Material | 316L |
| Route | Turning → milling → ID grinding → deburring |
The problem. The bore had to be genuinely round rather than merely on size, and the part had to arrive clean with no burr at the seating face. ID grinding after machining produced the roundness; deburring and individual protection were treated as part of the operation, not a separate step.
What that came from. Roundness that turning cannot reach, and deburring that is not an afterthought, are both short internal moves here.
Spur gear blank with a bored and keyed hub, cut from bar.
| Material | 4140, normalised |
| Route | Turning → hobbing → deburring |
The problem. Bore and tooth flank had to stay concentric to a tight value. Because the blank was turned and the gear cut in the same building, the bore was established once and used for both operations.
What that came from. Turning and gear cutting are separate suppliers for most shops. Here they are one operation.
Aluminium joint body with a weight-relieved wall and a bearing seat, revised twice after the first drawing was released.
| Material | 6061-T6 |
| Route | 5-axis milling → ID grinding → bead blasting → clear anodising |
The problem. Thin walls had to be machined without distortion, the bearing seat had to be truly round, and the plate was revised twice during the project. The part was supported rather than clamped hard, the seat was ground after milling, and the fixture and program were modified instead of re-quoting from scratch.
What that came from. Fixturing built in-house means a revision costs a change, not a restart — and grinding is a short internal move, not a new supplier.
Long shaft with a bearing journal and a hardened wear surface, for equipment in seawater service.
| Material | Duplex stainless |
| Route | Turning → heat treatment → OD grinding → polish |
The problem. The journal had to be round and the wear surface hard, on a shaft long enough to deflect. Grinding came after hardening so the roundness held, and the material certificate was traced to the heat and shipped with the parts.
What that came from. A long shaft that needs a ground journal and a hardened surface does not get re-datumed at a second supplier.
Tell us the part, the material and the quantity. An engineer reviews your drawing and replies within one working day — usually with a suggestion on how to make it cheaper.
