Advanced Machine & Engineering Co. (AME; Rockford, IL) can design and build Amrok ready-to-use dedicated manual fixtures from the ground up for horizontal and vertical machining centers and other CNC machinery.

AME?s services include machining tombstones to designing per customer specification. The company can provide tombstones with edge locating, hardened and ground wear pads, center locating or just mounting holes. In addition, it can design fixtures with plain faces, with or with any special machining, hole patterns, with precision bushings and threaded inserts or with precision T-slots.

The company also offers the Triag modular workholding system, along with its own Amflex® and other clamping components when designing turnkey manual fixtures. Triag?s modular design allows clamping of small parts in high density by attaching the clamp modules to rails. This rail-based system allows both very high part density in a limited working area and simple, quick-change setups.

AME?s years of precision workholding, engineering and manufacturing experience ensure that fixtures delivered to customers work in real-world applications. Precise locating is repeatable, and parts are held tightly through the machining process.

Dedicated manual fixtures offer a variety of benefits for customers, including reduced machine setup and cycle times; improved operator safety; improved tolerances resulting from the use of a single fixture as opposed to multiple fixtures; and reduced workpiece handling, which in turn can result in increased part production.

For example, Carolina Precision (Mooresville, NC), a hydraulic motion control system supplier, needed to increase production capacity without buying a new machining center. Its workpiece sizes range from ¾ in x 2 in square blocks to 3 in x 4 in x 8 in. All can be accommodated using AME?s Triag compact clamping system with integrated trunion. This fixture allows continuous three-sided machining and eliminates substantial handling and machine downtime. Carolina has seen reduced setup and cycle times of as much as 40 percent, and parts-per-month production is four times greater.

For a different user, AME designed a single dedicated fixture to hold slurry pumps comprising a left half and right half. The two halves required an A and B load, which meant that four setups were needed for a complete set of parts. The original nondedicated fixturing resulted in long setup times for part changeover and therefore higher costs. AME?s dedicated fixture cut the setup time in half; improved locating and clamping methods reduced the machining cycle time by almost half. Machine operator safety also was improved, and tolerances were maintained more easily.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Advanced Machine and Engineering, 2500 Latham Street, Rockford, IL 61103, 815-962-6076, www.ame.com .