Automated deburring opens the door to new opportunities

Oct 21, 2024

(From left) Dan Drumheller and Scottie Keys inspect a part that just exited Valley Precision’s FINISHLINE surface finishing machine. Images: Valley Precision Inc.

Timing is of the essence in metal fabricating. “First quote in wins” underlines the importance of quickly returned estimates. A fab shop offering lead times that are regularly shorter than a competitor is likely to get more business. Shops that can handle extremely “hot jobs,” turning them around in a day or two, are highly prized supply chain partners.

But sometimes timing is not just about speed. It’s about rhythm. Fabricating enough parts that are needed at the moment and not overproducing. Delaying a job that’s destined for powder coating because an application technician didn’t make it to work.

In 2019, Dan Drumheller knew it was his time. He was presented with an opportunity to make his mark in the sheet metal fabricating world. He was a co-owner of Valley Precision Inc., Waynesboro, Va., a fab shop that dates back to 1990. He and a partner purchased the business in 2003, but after 15 years working in small business, Drumheller’s partner was interested in pursuing some other role in the manufacturing universe. Drumheller bought his share of the business.

He was now ready to “jumpstart” operations, as Drumheller described it. Valley Precision had a nice customer base of electronics manufacturers that relied on the shop for boxes and other fabrications for their printed circuit boards, but the shop wasn’t growing fast enough in Drumheller’s estimation. Its lineup of older turret punch presses, press brakes, hardware insertion machines, and powder coating equipment was good enough to sustain business, but not suitable for absorbing more capacity. The time was right to invest.

“I borrowed a substantial amount of money, and I started buying equipment,” Drumheller said.

Drumheller knew that he needed a laser cutting machine, so he purchased a used 4-kW CO2 laser. He then started reaching out to everyone for which Valley Precision had ever made parts.

Upon learning that there was a new laser cutting service provider in town, many of those customers started sending work Valley Precision’s way. Workload increased enough that Drumheller said he began looking to add another laser cutting machine, this time one with a fiber laser power source.

Then the pandemic hit, and business slowed. But Drumheller pushed forward with his modernization plan.

He purchased a relatively new 4-kW fiber laser cutting machine from another shop that was looking to unload it because of the economic slowdown. He also added two new press brakes, new CNC milling machines, a welding robot, and new powder coating equipment.

“In the past five years, I’ve replaced almost every piece of equipment in the business,” Drumheller said.

Laser-cut parts are placed on a conveyor that feeds the surface finishing machine.

By 2022, with the pandemic in its waning days and domestic manufacturing revving up, Valley Precision was in a good position. Customers were starved for metal parts as they had worked through their safety stock and needed to replenish their inventories.

“Our workload increased really fast,” Drumheller said. “We were manufacturing the work we had normally done for some customers, but then they sent even more work in our direction. Luckily, we had the capacity.”

The timing couldn’t have been better for the company. When other metal fabricators had scaled back in light of the pandemic shutdown and the uncertain future, Valley Precision pushed forward, anticipating a strong rebound.

“I was really fortunate with the timing,” Drumheller said. “But even with all of the work coming through here, I had one bottleneck that was a real problem. It was the deburring of parts.”

The introduction of the fiber laser cutting machine cranked up the velocity of parts destined for downstream fabricating processes. Combined with the uptick in business, that was a huge wave of parts that had to be tackled with manual deburring equipment.

“The real truth, no matter how much a laser cutting guy tells you otherwise, is that there will be a tiny burr on [laser-cut] parts. And for electronics manufacturers who need precision enclosures and really fine, high-quality brackets, they don’t want any burrs,” Drumheller said.

Those same customers had concerns about sharp edges on punched metal parts as well. They would very likely reject any delivered metal parts that they felt might be a cut hazard for their employees.

That meant that Valley Precision had six or seven people at any one time with dual-action sanders removing the burrs and rounding the edges of every part that came off the laser cutting and punching machines.

“It was time-consuming. It was drudgery. It was hard,” said Drumheller, reflecting on the folks doing that work.

Given the bottleneck and the high turnover among the people involved in manual deburring, Drumheller began the search for automated surface finishing equipment. He said that the machine was a necessity if the company was to make the most of its recent capital equipment investments.

Rotating cup discs round the edges of the metal parts.

After researching many different vendors of finishing machines, Valley Precision really liked the edge-rounding cup discs of FINISHLINE from Mid Atlantic Global. This was something he found unique as many other surface finishing machines utilize a flap wheel design for edge rounding.

The machine was installed in mid-2022, and the impact was immediate. The machine started to make a real dent in deburring and edge-rounding laser-cut parts. So much so that the bottleneck went from almost seven days down to a couple of days.

“It really helped our throughput. I can’t speak highly enough about the value of having that type of machine,” Drumheller said.

He complimented the equipment on its ease of use. To begin, operators have a reference guide for control parameters for working with different material types and delivering certain surface finishes. They can key in the figures to the touchscreen control interface and initiate the job.

If the operator is not quite sure about the material thickness, he can place the part under a probe that’s just to the right of the opening, have the device register the part thickness, and watch the machine set the belts to the height required. If any adjustment is needed, the operator can tweak the job via the machine control.

If the job is going to be used again in the future, operators can store the program in the control software. The FINISHLINE can store up to 250 jobs.

How does Valley Precision’s machine work? As parts enter the machine, they engage an abrasive belt that removes the vertical burrs. The parts progress to the cup discs that rotate over the parts, rounding the edges and cleaning lateral burrs on the edges. The last stage of the process is another abrasive belt that handles the surface finish.

“The first head is a 70 shore [rating], which can knock off those stubborn vertical burrs. The last head is 35 shore, which is softer. It ensures that there’s a consistent touch of the media across the full width of the parts and the entire length of the part as it progresses through the machine,” said John Rutkiewicz, director of business development for the FINISHLINE machinery. He added that these types of machines also can accommodate deslagging cleats and oxide removal brushes if applications might call for that.

The machine can accommodate parts as thin as 0.020 in. or as thick as 6 in. The smaller parts are held into place by a vacuum. The opening to the machine is 43 in. wide.

Not only has the machine made an impact on productivity, it also has elevated the quality and consistency of finished parts, according to Drumheller. Previously, the dual-action finishes could sometimes be blotchy looking. Additionally, some customers didn’t even want that type of surface finish, preferring the simple mill finish or a brush finish. Now, the FINISHLINE can be set for a finish and consistently meet that customer-specified expectation.

Valley Precision’s laser-cut parts tend to have burrs (top), even those coming off its 4-kW fiber laser cutting machine. The FINISHLINE removes those burrs and rounds the edges (bottom), eliminating potential cut hazards.

The number of employees required in the deburring department has been reduced as well. Drumheller said that two people still do manual finishes, but they mainly focus on specialty work, something that’s best left to skilled hands. They enjoy the challenge and variation of the work. Others, meanwhile, have been assigned to other areas of the facility.

“The lead times and our throughput times have gone down significantly,” Drumheller said. “We now can adjust workflow after that deburring process because we have plenty of time before the parts are due. So now we get to pick and choose an efficient method, where before we were waiting on the deburring department and then taking whatever we could get at that moment it was available and rushing it through no matter how inefficiently the process would flow.

“This lets us schedule things more effectively because the parts are done more quickly,” he added. “Now as soon as the order arrives, we laser-cut and deburr the parts right away. Then we choose when we’re going to do the next operation based on when the timing is right.”

The timing certainly has never been better for Valley Precision.

Valley Precision’s latest capital equipment investment also is capable of delivering specialty finishes. In fact, companies are starting to approach the fab shop just for surface finishing work, opening up a new line of business for the company.