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Weld Fixture Tooling Executives Travel 1,166 Miles in Six Days to Meet Long-distance Customers.

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The President and Founder of Rentapen Inc., a small machine design and build services company and manufacturer of weld fixture tooling components, drove from Alabama to Michigan gathering feedback from Customers.

On April 26, 2013 Founder, George Straley and President, Susan Straley arrived in Waukesha, Wisconsin after traveling 1,166 miles in 6 days.  The husband and wife duo traveled from Florida to Wisconsin making five stops along the way.  They met with machine tooling design and build customers, a robot and automation systems company, a furniture manufacturer, and a manufacturer of forklifts.

Sue and George Straley - Owners of Rentapen Inc.

“Everyone was very friendly and gave us tours of their factories.  Most all of them reported being very busy, which is great for us,” Susan Straley said.  “I loved hearing how they are so glad they found us and like working with our team.”

One customer announced they were sending Rentapen 35 more fixtures to quote.

George Straley started Rentapen Inc. in 1976 and has been designing machines since.  In the 1980’s the Straley’s moved their business to Waukesha, Wisconsin, and became a provider of 2D Computer Aided Drafting (CAD).  They soon started designing in Pro/E 3D solid modeling and quickly became the experts.  They have helped several customers set up Pro/Engineer for Machine Design, automating the bills of materials.  Soon after that the introduced a major cost saving product in weld fixture design with their own line of RAPid Tooling Components™.  In the beginning of producing their product, George and Susan packed RAPid Shims™ from their dining room table.

“Each time we train someone to sand, oil, count, and pack our precision metal shims.  I tell them about the hours that our family spent counting and packing shims at our kitchen table in 2002,” said Susan Straley.

Rentapen Inc. provides 3D design and build of weld and assembly fixtures.  Though Rentapen provides machine design engineering services to manufacturers, Rentapen also is a manufacturer.  Producing their line of RAPid Tooling Components™ that are used on weld and assembly fixtures located on production floors throughout the United States.  The line consists of Blocks, Plates, Clamp Risers and Shims.

Rentapen’s RAPid Blocks™, RAPid Plates™, Clamp Risers and Shims precisely hold a company’s product in their Weld Fixture while it is being manually or robotically assembled or welded.  Rentapen Inc specializes in weld fixtures for manufacturers.  When a company is tooling up their factory to produce their new product and the product contains items that need to be welded together, that company will call Rentapen to design and build a machine tool that they can use to improve efficiency on the production floor.

“We were able to see the fixtures we designed and built being used in the Robotic Weld Cells,” said George Straley.  “We listen in these meetings for areas we can improve or problems that we can solve.”

Rapid Tooling Components™ reduce the design cost of the fixture by eliminating the need to design, detail and check similar parts over and over again. Three dimensional computer models are provided by Rentapen Inc. that customers can use to incorporate into their designs.  These modular components are the new standard in weld jig and assembly fixture design.

Rentapen Inc., is the weld fixture specialist, and is home of RAPid Tooling Components. Rentapen Inc. has been providing machine tool design services to manufactures since 1976.  A Certified Woman Owned Business and owns RAPid Tooling Components™. For more information about Rentapen Inc., please call 262-542-8891.

 Power, Automation and Robots — Manufacturing from Alabama to Michigan

Sales Goals Exceeded By 22% In First Quarter For Weld Fixture Tooling Components Company.

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Local Wisconsin Weld Fixture Specialist Company Sees Big Numbers In The First Quarter.

April 9, 2013, an article in the Milwaukee Area Business Journal entitled “Manufacturing growth to outpace GDP in 2013, 2014”  by Jeff Engel stated that the expert projections are that manufacturing will outpace overall economic growth in 2013 and 2014, with a 2.2 percent manufacturing increase in 2013 compared with overall gross domestic product growth of less than 2 percent.
Rentapen Inc., an engineering and manufacturing company located in Waukesha, WI has exemplified growth in the first quarter of 2013 by exceeding its sales goals by 22% in the first quarter.

Rentapen is a multifaceted manufacturing company with their ability to design and build many different types of weld fixtures.  Their engineers create 3D CAD drawings of weld and assembly tooling they design.  Rentapen’s customers sometimes just want the drawings and they build the fixtures in house.  Some customers prefer to get the fixture designed, built and tested by Rentapen.

3D ModelsAnother side to Rentapen Inc., is their line of RAPid Tooling Components™.  This line is made up of RAPid Blocks™, RAPid Plates™, RAPid Risers™ and RAPid Shims™.  These components are used by manufacturers that build weld jigs and assembly fixtures and other types of work-holding tools.

Besides increasing sales, Rentapen Inc. has increased their customer base for RAPid Tooling Components™, Pro/E CAD and Solidworks Designs and weld fixture build projects.  They acquired twelve new customers in the first quarter.

The Business Journal article stated, “In Milwaukee, the manufacturing sector has expanded the past four months, according to the Institute for Supply Management – Milwaukee report compiled by Marquette University. “

Maybe this will help improve the job outlook for the area.  Rentapen’s factory has been busy enough in the past couple months to justify hiring help to pack their precision steel shims and shim packs — RAPid Shims™.

Rentapen’s shop team assembles, packages, and ships their RAPid Tooling Components™, including their custom and standard metal shims and shim packs.  Also, Rentapen has been seeking a Machine Tool Designer and Weld Fixture Design Project Lead Engineer.

“Not only are we a manufacturer, but we serve manufacturers.  So when manufacturing is busy, we get busy,” said Susan Straley, Rentapen’s President.

Sue and George Straley - Owners of Rentapen Inc.President and Co-Founder of Rentapen Inc., Susan and George Straley, have been dedicated to their machine designing company and satisfying their customers’ needs to reduce costs since 1976. They have continued to stay positive during these hard economic times and it has been paying off.

Rentapen’s increase in shim and tooling component sales are a result of an overall trend in Manufacturing in the Midwest. Manufacturers in the Midwest are growing in sales and investing in machine tooling.

Rentapen Inc., is the weld fixture specialist, and is home of RAPid Tooling Components™. Rentapen Inc. has been providing machine tool design services to manufactures since 1976.  A Certified Woman Owned Business and owns RAPid Tooling Components™. For more information about Rentapen Inc., please call 262-542-8891.

 

Weld Tooling Design Company Introduces New Cost Saving Clamp Risers

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Lean Manufacturers Discover Time and Cost Savings in Their Product-Holding Fixtures With Clamp Risers by Rentapen

In the beginning of April, 2013 Rentapen Inc. launched new website pages for their line of clamp risers and spacers.  The clamp risers are made specifically for different brands of clamps including: Wolverine, Carr Lane, REID, De-Sta-Co, TE-CO, All American, and Jergens.   Each riser or spacer is tapped and drilled for mounting the designated clamp and uses counter bored holes for mounting the riser or spacer to the fixture or jig.

Rentapen’s design team has been designing and building weld fixtures for over 35 years. They realized they were designing the same clamp risers over and over again.  So Rentapen developed what is now called RAPid Risers™,  a line of tooling components that hold all of the finest brands of part holding clamps.  These standardized yet versatile risers save manufacturers time and money when it comes to the design and build process.

Wolverine Clamps3D CAD Models of the risers can be downloaded from Rentapen’s website along with informational PDFs that detail the design of the RAPid Riser™.

 “By focusing our processes and skilled talent on what we do well, we free-up our customers time, energy, and talent to be more powerful and productive with what they do well,” said Susan Straley,  President of Rentapen.  “That gives them peace of mind and contributes to their success.”

If a designer created a clamp riser from scratch, like Rentapen and all other machine tooling design companies used to do, they would have to go through a timely and expensive process that includes: designing the part; detailing; checking; ordering material; writing the CNC code; creating the part and finally inspecting the part.

This entire process takes about 77 minutes. Manufacturers are now able to download the 3D model from Rentapen’s website, save the model to their library, put the riser into their design, and order the block.   Once the model is in the company’s CAD library, the process approximately takes 4 minutes.  Rentapen’s RAPid Riser™ is saving the manufacturers as much as 73 minutes in design and build time.

 “The RAPid Risers™ are just another way for the fixture builder to save time and money on the design and build of weld fixtures or any other type of fixture,” said, Steve Pautz, Product manager at E.L. Simeth Co. a distributor of the clamp risers.  “The Clamp Risers is just one part of this unique design system that really works. E.L. Simeth Company, as the distributor for this line, has customers that use the complete line so we know that it works very well,”

RapidRisersRapid Tooling Components™ reduce the design cost of the fixture by eliminating the need to design, detail and check similar parts over and over again. Three dimensional computer models are provided by Rentapen Inc. that customers can use to incorporate into their designs.  These modular components are the new standard in weld jig and assembly fixture design.

Rentapen Inc., is the weld fixture specialist, and is home of RAPid Tooling Components. Rentapen Inc. has been providing machine tool design services to manufactures since 1976.  A Certified Woman Owned Business and owns RAPid Tooling Components™. For more information about Rentapen Inc., please call 262-542-8891.

3D Models of Tooling Components Assists in Growth of Weld Fixture Design Company As New Part-Holding Tooling Pieces are Added.

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Rentapen Inc., of Waukesha, WI, Continues to Expand the Number of Components and Product Parts Available for 3D-Model Download.

In January and March 2013, Rentapen Inc., a 3D CAD Design Company added several new components to its 3D-Model download web page, www.WeldFixtureComponents.com.

Rentapen Inc., offers a large custom line of RAPid Tooling Components™ that can be downloaded for free to help manufactures save time and money while designing and building their weld and assembly jigs and fixtures.  RAPid Tooling Components™ are a new American standard for the machine design Industry.

An alternative to NAAMS, Rentapen’s components along with the 3D models have changed how Machine Design Engineers and CAD Drafters design their weld fixtures.

 “In 2001 we discovered we, as weld fixture and assembly fixture designers, were designing the same parts over and over again.  So we realized if we standardized on those parts we could save our customers lots of time and costs.  So we created RAPid Tooling Components™,” said George Straley, Founder of Rentapen.

Rentapen Inc., has a total of 9 different types of RAPid Blocks™ that can be ordered to fit different tooling fixture needs.  In the beginning, customers would buy the RAPid Block™ and then if the block needed to be altered, they would place the part in their CNC or take it to another vendor. RAPid Blocks are often altered to add a hole in it to hold a locating pin or a rest pad or to chamfer a corner.   In 2011, Rentapen Inc., began to offer customized alterations to their RAPid Blocks™.

Rentapen Inc., manufactures each block as it is ordered.  This allows them to keep inventory low and provide a valuable service to their customers.  Rentapen Inc., will customize the RAPid Block™ per the customer’s specifications. “Need a chamfer? No Problem.  Need a hole for a locating pin?  No problem,” said Susan Straley, President of Rentapen.

Productuon Part Holding MachineryAll of Rentapen’s RAPid Tooling Components™ are made in the U.S.A. This is in line with Rentapen’s vision as the U.S. Leader in machine design and tooling components.  Rentapen is dedicated to reducing costs for manufacturers. And their free 3D service is greatly help manufacturers on their lean journey.

Rentapen Inc., is the weld fixture specialist, and is home of RAPid Tooling Component™s. Rentapen Inc. has been providing machine tool design services to manufactures since 1976.  A Certified Woman Owned Business and owns RAPid Tooling Components™. For more information Rentapen Inc., please call 262-542-8891 or visit http://www.rentapen.com.

 

Weld Fixture Design Company Engineering Manager Seeks to Grow With the Company.

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Rentapen Inc.’s, Design Engineering Manager, Blake Peterson, Continues His Education To Improve Productivity.

On January 7, 2013 Blake Peterson started another fast paced group of classes toward his Bachelor of Science Degree majoring in Business Management. Peterson joined Rentapen, the Weld Fixture Specialists, in November, 2011 as Engineering Manager. Rentapen designs machine tools for companies that manufacture a product. Rentapen specializes in Weld Jigs and Shims.

The company also manufactures a line to weld tooling components called RAPid Tooling Components™. These RAPid Tooling Components™ consists of RAPid Blocks™, RAPid Plates™, Clamp Risers and Shims.

Lindsey Frick, Associated Editor for MachineDesign.com, found information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which projects a need for 17,830 additional engineers each year for the next 10 years. Lindsey also wrote in her article that Community colleges are an untapped resource for potential engineering students.

Currently, Peterson is conducting interviews for an Engineering Project Manager that will quickly grow as Peterson grows. The Machine Designer position will involve the conception and design of weld fixtures and guiding and teaching CAD Drafters and interns as they learn.

Peterson, Engineering Manager, is expected to graduate in 2014 from Cardinal Stritch, located in the greater Milwaukee, WI area. Peterson is taking the necessary actions to get ahead in his engineering and management career. He is taking advantage of accelerated on-line classes to improve his ability to lead and expand his knowledge base. Some of the classes Peterson is looking forward to taking are Management of Leadership, Business Ethics, and Strategic Organizational Leadership.

At Rentapen Inc., Peterson is already seeking responsibilities outside the Engineering Manager title that he currently holds. He works closely with the shop to solve issues and evaluate scheduling needs. He works with the Leadership Team to expand Rentapen’s capacity to build small to medium weld jigs.

Peterson already has an extensive background of engineering management experience; however, Peterson decided to further his education in business management to understand more of the financial side of the business. The role that Peterson plays in the company, he hopes will transition from Engineering Management to more of the total Operations Management. Since joining Rentapen he has had to learn Pro/E CAD software. He has also learned each of the customers’ engineering standards to help him as he guides and checks the work of the machine designers.

Teach and Guide CAD Drafters and Interns

For the past three months Peterson has been guiding the Design Engineering Team as it focuses on reducing costs for manufacturers through lean weld fixture design. He has also been working with the Leadership Team to enhance Rentapen’s RAPid Tooling Components™. RAPid Tooling Components™ are an extension to Rentapen’s mission to save manufacturers time.

The role that Peterson is aiming for is to oversee the operational side of the business. He wants to move into leading the managers and participating in the planning. His new education will help him to know what to do to increase profits, increase cash, and reduce costs.

Rentapen’s Culture includes an emphasis of constant learning and self- improvement. The machine tool company’s culture statement says, “Rentapen is only as good as its team members. We aim to hire and retain the best … We are flexible. We are constantly improving ourselves and our processes. We delight in learning new skills, improving ways of doing things….”

Weld Jig Design and Tooling Company Introduces Wolverine Clamp Riser

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Rentapen Inc., Located In Waukesha, WI Has Added A Brand New RAPid Tooling Component™ To Their Website.

On Monday, January 21, 2013, Rentapen Inc. launched their new spacer and riser to go under Wolverine Clamps. They immediately made 3D models available for customers to download from their website and place in their machine tool designs.

Rentapen developed a new line of clamp risers that will work with a variety of Wolverine brand clamps. The Wolverine clamp is designed to hold parts in place while the parts are being welded or assembled with other parts during production. Often times the machine tool requirement is that the clamp needs to be attached to a mounting block to be in the right position for clamping the production part.

“We have several new products that are being launched early this year that will be offered to help manufacturers and machine tool makers save time,” said Susan Straley, President and Owner of Rentapen. “Our team is excited about this first new product launch of 2013.”

Wolverine clamps are available in a variety of styles and sizes. Rentapen’s new risers are able to hold straight-line clamps and manual or pneumatic hold-down clamps. When Machine Tool Designers are creating jigs or fixtures, they find it is faster and cheaper to use purchased products as often as possible to reduce design and build time and to reduce errors.

By using a purchased component the manufacturer saves time needed to create a custom clamp riser from start to finish. For example, they would have to go through a timely and expensive process that includes: designing the part; detailing; checking; ordering material; writing the CNC code; creating the part and finally inspecting the part. Time studies have shown that Rentapen’s RAPid Risers™ saves manufacturers as much as 73 minutes in design and build time.
“We experienced phenomenal growth in our tooling component sales in 2012 as more manufacturers learned about the quality and versatility of our product line,” said Straley. “More and more, RAPid Tooling Components are becoming the new standard in assembly fixture and weld fixture design.”
Rentapen Inc. has been designing machines since 1976. In 2002 they developed the RAPid Tooling Components™ line in response to their customers need to reduce costs. The new clamp risers will be made in the USA.

Cost Saving Clamp Risers

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Lean Manufacturers Are Now Saving Time and Money By Purchasing Their Clamp Risers Through Rentapen Inc.

Rentapen’s design team has been designing machines for 35 years. They realized they were designing the same clamp risers over and over again. So Rentapen developed what is now called Rentapen’s RAPid Tooling Components™, a line of tooling components.

These standardized yet versatile components save manufacturers time and money.

The mounting holes in the clamp risers are able to fit a wide variety of brands and sizes of clamps including:Carr Lane, REID, De-Sta-Co, TE-CO, All American, and Jergens. A catalog of choices can be found on Rentapen’s website.

If a designer created a clamp riser from scratch, like Rentapen and all other machine tooling design companies used to do, they would have to go through a timely and expensive process that includes: designing the part; detailing; checking; ordering material; writing the CNC code; creating the part and finally inspecting the part.

The whole process takes about 77 minutes. Manufacturers will soon be able to download the 3D model from Rentapen’s website, save the model to their library, put the riser into their design, and order the block. This approximately takes 4 minutes. Rentapen’s RAPid Riser™ is saving the manufacturers as much as 73 minutes in design and build time.

 

Rapid Tooling Components™ reduce the design cost of the fixture by eliminating the need to design, detail and check similar parts over and over again. Three dimensional computer models are provided by Rentapen that customers can use to incorporate into their designs.

Clamp Risers come in .5 inch increments and in aluminum to reduce weight in the fixture.

“Rentapen is theUSleader in machine design and tooling components. We earn our customer’s enthusiasm because we enjoy the opportunity to provide efficiency by design, expertise, and convenient service,” said Susan Straley, Queen of Lean Machine Design and President of Rentapen Inc.

Manufacturing engineers have known that purchased components save time and money. Manufactures have been buying their clamps that hold their product parts in position while they are being welded or assembled. Now they can buy their risers that sit under those clamps from Rentapen and reduce their costs.

 

 

 

 

 

Rentapen Continues To Expand

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Rentapen Inc. located in Waukesha, WI just hired a Shop Maintenance Associate and Customer Order Manager

Rentapen’s team continues to grow in order to support their mission of helping manufacturers reduce costs. Rentapen has added two new employees to their team, Vicki Treul and John Edward Murphy. Treul is the new Customer Order Manager and Murphy is the new Shop Maintenance Associate.

Treul will be responsible for 2D drawings of parts for quoting, inventory control, and creating files that will be sent to the metal cutting laser as part of Rentapen’s Just-in-Time Laser Cutting Services.

“Vicki Treul’s extensive background and skills in production management, will contribute to Rentapen’s growth,” said Susan Straley President at Rentapen Inc.

Murphy will be in charge of all the maintenance in Rentapen’s CNC machine and metal cutting lasers and other factory equipment. Murphy will be taking care of all the machines, assembly, cleaning, packaging, and assisting all the employees that work in Rentapen’s factory.


“I’m excited to join the Rentapen team and I’m happy to see the company grow,” said Murphy.

“Ed has experience in machine maintenance and along with a good work ethic, he fits right into our culture,” said Straley.

Rentapen’s CNC machine and Laser Cutting machines are used for producing Rentapen’s RAPid Tooling Components, a line of blocks, plates and clamp risers and shims used to reduce the costs of jigs and weld fixtures.

Rentapen’s larger, metal-cutting laser is used for Rentapen’s Just-in-Time Laser Cutting Services. Rentapen has a Mitsubishi 4000 Watt CO2 laser that cuts up to 1 inch steel, .5 inch stainless steel and .5 inch aluminum. The laser table will accommodate a sheet size of 5ft by 10ft.

The key benefits of Rentapen’s Just-In-Time Laser Cutting Services are a small affected heat zone, repeatability, close tolerances, and speed of cut. The cutting feed rates for Renatpen’s laser are ½ inch of aluminum is 200 inches per minute, 1 inch mild steel is 100 inches per minute and 1 inch of stainless steel is 100 inches per minute.

Rentapen’s Just-In-Time Laser Cutting Services can help manufactures reduce their inventory costs because they can order only what they need when they need it.

Jig or Weld Fixture Design — Five Items to Consider in V-Block Design

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Five items to consider when designing your V-block

In our last Jig or Weld Fixture Design blog we talked about different ways to locate a round rod or tube.   One of the more common ways is with a v-block.

Today we will discuss some of the questions that help you decide the material, modeling method using Pro/E  4.0, and fastener locations.

1)      MATERIAL  —

First decide what material you will need the v-block to be.

How much will the fixture be used?    That means knowing what the product is made of because we need the v-block to be strong enough not to wear down too quickly.  We want to be able to produce lots of product before we have to replace any of the parts in the fixture.    The more the fixture is going to be used the harder you need to make the v-block relative to the product tube or rod.

Do you need to plan for weld splatter?

If the v-block is located near the weld joint, you will need to consider using a metal that the weld splatter will not stick to as easily, or using a weld splatter shield.  Remember that like metals stick better.  So if you are welding steel, you may want your v-block to be Ampco 18 bronze or a hardened steel such as 4140 PH or A2.   If you are welding aluminum, hardened steel may work just fine.

2)      TOLERANCING –

Is the location of the rod or tube critical?

If the tube or rod needs to be located in just the right spot in order to work or assemble easily to the rest of the product parts, then you will want to design in adjustability with shim packs.  You will need to look at the product drawing and also know your customer’s preferences.

At Rentapen we design for many different customers.  So we have to consider the standards and preferences of each customer when we design.  Some of them love to shim every locator in a fixture.  Some of them don’t like to shim at all.   If you are a CAD drafter, you may be working under more than one designer.  Each designer may have their own preferences.  But it is up to you to look at the product drawing and then advise them when you think shims will be needed to meet the tolerances of the product drawing.   Then do what they say, they are your customer.

If it is a rough location, you may be able to use a purchased V-block from somewhere.  Do you have a favorite model or brand you would like to share?

3)      FASTENERS –

Once you have decided if your v-block will have shims to fine-tune its location before going into production, you can decide about the location of the fasteners.  If the tube or rod location is critical, you will need to use dowels to lock in the location.  If it is rough, you can just fasten the v-block directly to the base plate with screws.

4)      MODELING —

Locating the Vee in the v-block.

Here is how I model in the Vee cut.  Click on the video to see my method using Pro/E  Wildfire 4.0.

In this video I dimensioned the construction hole from the BOTTOM of the block.  However, the v-cut may fail if I make an adjustment too big in one direction or the other.  Some of the project engineers I have worked with prefer that the dimension for the V-cut be from the TOP surface of the block.  That way you can change the size of the block without having problems with the cut.

Some like to create planes that intersect at the center where the the construction circle will be located.  These planes are created before you start the sketch to cut the Vee.  I think your preference depends on your experience and how your brain works when making adjustments to parts while in the assembly.

5)      CLAMPING —

Clamping is a whole topic by itself that we will address in a future blog.  I just wanted to note that it is something that you need to think about.  We always clamp down our parts in weld fixtures, even if it is a table mounted fixture and gravity does its work.  You want to be sure that tube doesn’t move when the heat of the weld hits it.

 

And now I would like to share a couple of things with you.

First, Rentapen’s Holiday Greeting to our customers, vendors, students, and friends.

Second, we are in the news!  Check out the latest news at Rentapen by clicking here.

Till next time!

Susan Straley

The Queen of Lean Machine Design