Productive Times: Bonded by light

Urschel Laboratories Inc. manufactures industrial equipment to slice, dice, shred and mill virtually any food product.

According to Bill Monroe, senior manufacturing engineer for Urschel, the company machines parts for the food processors at its only manufacturing facility, located in Urschel’s 350,000-sq.-ft. headquarters. Urschel produces many of these workpieces in its two foundries. “We have a no-bake foundry and an investment foundry,” Monroe said.

Adhesive is applied to the gripper head of a Blue Photon photo-activated adhesive workholding system. Image courtesy of Urschel Laboratories.

As part of a major new project that Urschel, Chesterton, Ind., started late last year, Monroe needed to hold a 300-series stainless steel billet that was convex on one side and then access five sides when machining it on a 5-axis machine. Coincidentally, he received an unsolicited email at the time from Blue Photon Technology & Workholding Systems LLC, Shelby, Mich. The email, which didn’t get permanently deleted like all his other junk messages, promoted Blue Photon’s photo-activated adhesive workholding system for machining delicate or hard-to-hold parts.

“I thought, ‘Wow, that is a really good opportunity for this casting,'” Monroe said.

According to Blue Photon, the workholding system has patented grippers that hold the workpiece. The company’s BlueGrip adhesive fills the gap between the gripper head and the workpiece surface. Ultraviolet light applied through the solid, transparent light guide that runs through the center of each tubular gripper polymerizes the adhesive. This workholding arrangement accommodates irregular shapes and textured surfaces, freeing the workpiece from clamps and vise grips while eliminating the need for designing additional workholding features into the workpiece, such as lugs or dovetails.