Tag Archives: laser cutting

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.

RENTAPEN BEATS PRICE and DELIVERS MISUMI STYLE REST PADS

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 Rentapen Inc’s CNC operating team goes the extra mile to deliver metric rest pads on time.

News-2011-12-07, Waukesha, WI

The Rentapen’s team is fast and accurate when it comes to getting their customer’s orders out.  Their employees will go the extra mile to make sure a customer is satisfied.  John Dinon is the CNC operator at Rentapen, and these past weeks he and his team have put in many hours of overtime to get a customer’s order finished on time.

An order came into Rentapen Inc. on October 17, 2011 for 219 metric rest pads similar to Misumi rest pads.  The due date was November 28, 2011. John Dinon, along with his shop team went straight to work to get the rest pads done correctly and on time.

Then the customer called four days before the order was to be shipped out and ordered 30 more rest pads.  The shipment date remained the same.  The CNC Operating team worked days, evenings, and even weekends on those metric rest pads. The order was shipped out on time and the customer was very satisfied.

"My best reward is when the customer sends us another order"

John Dinon has worked at Rentapen Inc for a little over a year now.  He was presented with Rentapen’s Extra Mile Award for his efforts in getting the order finished.  “The only reward I need is for the customer to give us another order,” said Dinon.

 

 

Dinon’s attitude and dedication to the customer’s needs is what is needed in the highly competitive machine tool industry.  Rentapen’s culture statement encourages ownership, drive, a positive attitude.

Rentapen Inc. is a machine design company specializing in cost reductions for manufacturers. They do this through excellence in machine design. They specialize in jig and weld fixture design; RAPid Tooling Components ™ (a line of standard yet versatile blocks, plates, clamp risers, and shims used to reduce the cost of jigs and weld fixtures); and Just-in-Time Laser Cutting Services ™.  Rentapen has been in business since 1976 and is located in Waukesha, WI.

Custom Cut Metal Parts

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What would YOU cut if you could cut through up to 1″ steel?

It’s getting toward the holiday’s so let’s have some fun.  I want to know what metal shape would you cut if you had a 4000 watt laser available to you?

Take a look at slide show and see some ways that we at Rentapen have used the laser to create custom cut metal parts, etched marble and plastic, and made some tools.

Now it is YOUR turn.  What would you have or what have you had custom cut?  If you have a picture, send it to me at news at rentapen dot com.  If it is ok, I would like to share the pictures in a future blog.

When you are done sharing your metal cut parts stories and pictures, then relax with a couple more fun promotional videos I got from Fiverr!

 

RENTAPEN in the NEWS!
Meet Bethany Kratz, Our Lady of the Laser at Rentapen.