Resource Library

Industry: Agriculture

Part: Metal trusses

Challenge: There are an infinite number of part lengths and pitches that all need to be accommodated on one fixture. Fixed anchoring of table legs didn’t allow for enough flexibility. Also, the trusses are designed with tabs that are meant to provide an attachment point for purlins and girders. If the tabs are off, construction of the whole barn is off.

Solution: A custom-manufactured curved rail that allows the end of a 50ft. long U-form fixture to be positioned anywhere along a 180° radius. Modular fixturing kit includes adjustable stops and angles that can be used as outriggers.

Engineer Insight: The new rail, along with rolling bridge legs and the use of outriggers, can handle trusses of any style, length or pitch. The adjustable stops compensate for weld shrinkage. The ability to add camber to the setup helps the trusses set straight. Repeatable modular component placement means the tab weldments are precisely located every time. As a result, everything is straight and square every time. This means boards used in construction can be cut to nominal lengths. No more layout and measuring.

Industry: Automotive

Part: Prototype Soft Tail Rear Frame

Challenge: This part requires alignment of holes in parts that do not have any accurate edges available for fixturing. The rounded profile of the part does not allow simple locating with standard bars and angles.

Solution: Aluminum Titanium RH and LH Angles bolted to the edge of a 3D Welding Table open up more usable table surface while they hold the part in position. The unusual shape of the part is accommodated by a setup of Stop Bars and low Long Slot Angles on the interior, and by Long Slot Angles and Spacers on the outside. The slots allow the Angles to slide out when the part is ready to be removed, and slide back into the same exact position for repeatable accuracy.

Engineer Insight: Accurately locating holes using modular fixturing can present a unique challenge when only using standard components, and sometimes custom-designed parts are the best option. But for short-run or one-off parts, standard fixturing components can be used to locate a long round bar that passes through all the holes that need to be kept concentric. Using common size bar is simpler and less costly than producing custom components or post-weld machining.

Industry: Robotics

Part: Robot Pedestal

Challenge: Interior dimensions must be held accurately to allow equipment to fit under the pedestal while minimizing the overall footprint. However, due to the small area between the side plates, using too many different components to hold the part would make the fixture inoperable.

Solution: Hardened Angles, and aluminum Angles and Consoles are used to hold the top plate and keep the tall side plates square. Locators are required on the inside of the tall side plates. This is accomplished using Toggle-Handle Bolts to allow quick removal to release the part from the fixture. The interior locators use Spacer Sets so that replacement does not require any re-measuring or re-setting.

Engineer Insight: The Hardened Steel and Aluminum-Titanium Cast angles provide multiple accurate locating surfaces and hole patterns to maximize the functionality of a single component. In this fixture, the top, front, and side of each Angle and Console are used to attach a Locator or place a Clamp. This allows the number of components to be minimized without sacrificing accuracy.

Industry: Industrial equipment

Part: Electrical enclosure

Challenge: The part is a single piece of sheet metal, cut and formed to create the box structure. In order to have the door fit and form a good seal, it is critical that the flanged opening is perfectly square and flush. The sheet metal forming process naturally leaves some gaps, and if the gaps are closed by hand or with C-clamps, the square shape will become a parallelogram.

Solution: Aluminum Angles and Consoles are used to form a square corner for a point of reference. Push Clamps are used with small steel Angles to apply pressure evenly on sides of the part to ensure they are pushed evenly. Flat Bars distribute the force of Swing Clamps across four flange surfaces. For other sizes, at most four components will need to be repositioned.

Engineer Insight: An accurate, square point of reference and evenly applied clamping pressure is all that was needed to solve this challenge. Modular fixturing provides an elegantly simple solution that not only improves quality, but also allows faster changeover.

Industry: Entertainment

Part: Stage Lighting Truss

Challenge: Rounded tubes, 3D Construction.

Solution: This part involves numerous individual components in a 3D arrangement. Holding each piece part individually would take too long to set up, and would make loading, welding & removing the part difficult. Construction of this 3D structure was simplified by building planar subframes, and then the final structure. This fixture is arranged to build the sub close to the table, remove, build the second sub, load a few additional tubes and then add the top sub back on. The tall angles are used as locators for the sub and the final fixture. The angles used to locate the tubing for the subs hold the part off the table to prevent debris from accumulating on locating surfaces.

Engineer Insight: Overall welding distortion can be reduced when building sequentially through sub-assemblies. The welding distortion can be contained within each sub, so that distortion has already occurred and can be compensated for before the final step of marrying the subs together.

Industry: Transportation

Part: Dock leveler sub-frame

Challenge: Piece needs to marry up to another one, so strict tolerances need to be maintained. The angled channel must be accurate to ensure that the dock leveler will move evenly and not bind when actuated.

Solution: Stop Bars bolted to the edge of a 3D Welding Table line the part up on two sides to keep it square while holding the part up off the table. Spacers and rounded post caps are used to accommodate the narrowing angle inside the part. The simple placement of additional alignment pins used as standoffs help keep the other edges elevated off the table.

Engineer Insight: Rolled structural material can be difficult to locate and clamp accurately due to wide manufacturing tolerances on web and flange geometries. Pusher clamps apply pressure in two directions on an interior corner (“down” & “in”) to keep the wider surface vertical against the stops and hold the part down in the fixture. For the short channel, the yellow swing clamps contain a compensating mechanism to ensure that force is applied vertically to prevent channel, I-beam, and other structural components from rocking or being pushed over.

Industry: Industrial equipment

Part: Motor pedestal for industrial fan

Challenge: Every fan unit gets a pedestal like this, but there are many different configurations. The parts are tab-and-slot to self-locate, but a point of reference is needed to start and finish accurately. Also, the side plates are on a slight angle.

Solution: 3D custom welding table and modular component kit.

Engineer Insight: The fixture is elegantly simple and completely adaptable to different configurations. Cast knees allow the fixture to reach up and support the tall sides and the anchoring plate (with slotted holes). The universal adjustable angle clamp (D28-7007) can apply force at any angle.

Industry: Food processing

Part: Industrial Slicer/Cutter

Challenge: Part is stainless steel in order to be sanitary and food grade. But stainless is prone to shrinkage, which results in parts that are out of square. Also, the part needs to be flipped and turned to make the necessary weldments.

Solution: Powered Manipulator and modular component kit

Engineer Insight: Modular clamps apply the force needed to minimize shrinkage. Angles and locators keep the part square. Positioner allows the part to be welded in position from all sides and angles. Block extensions off the table make it easy to keep clamps and other tooling out of the welders’ way.