Rentapen wins Award for Excellence in Business


On November 9, Rentapen, Inc, a woman-owned machine tool design and build company was honored for its achievements in exceptional marketing by the Waukesha Award Program.


Rentapen Inc. specializes in weld and assembly fixtures and custom and standard precision shims. The weld jig and assembly fixture design and build company was selected for the 2012 Best of Waukesha Award in the Miscellaneous General Business Services category by the Waukesha Award Program.

Earlier in 2012, Rentapen also was voted one of the Top 10 Businesses in the Waukesha Area by the Waukesha Business Alliance and the Biz Times. That award was based on Customer Service, Growth, and Employee Relations.

Each year, the Waukesha Award Program identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Waukesha area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2012 Waukesha Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Waukesha Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Rentapen
Rentapen works with manufacturers when they are tooling up their factories to produce their products. In response to their customers’ need to reduce the time needed to design and build a fixture, Rentapen developed a line of standard yet versatile components. These components save machine designers and manufacturers time when designing and building their weld and assembly fixtures.

This simple weld fixture contains Rentapens time-saving RAPid Tooling Components(TM)

The product line, called RAPid Tooling Components include clamp risers, blocks, plates and precision shims. They are quickly becoming popular among machine tool designers and have grown to be half of Rentapen’s sales. Thanks to a dynamic website where 3D models of the components can be downloaded and placed easily into designs.

About Waukesha Award Program

The Waukesha Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Waukesha area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Waukesha Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in the Waukesha community. The organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. The Waukesha Award Program’s mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

Weld Fixture Design – Discover how to Adjust Location of Straight Action Clamp

Discover how to adjust the location of a straight line action clamp.

Often times, when designing a fixture we need to think ahead to where else adjustments might be made that will affect the area of the design we are working on.

In this video lesson we discuss using RAPid Plate ™ RB09 in combination with metal shims and over-sized holes to locate a straight line action clamp sub assembly.

So in this lesson we talked about sub assemblies. We have found them very useful.  In a future blog I will talk about how to create them, use them, and still have your whole BOM shown on the main assembly drawing.

Now, those of you who read this blog have a special treat.  Rentapen has just launched it’s beta for downloading 3D models of RAPid Tooling Components.   Please help us test it out and leave a comment below. Go to Rentapen’s home page http://www.rentapen.com and click the last item in the top menu, “Order 3D Models”.

Let me know what you think!

The Queen

6-Questions RE: Locating Pins in Weld Fixture Design

 

In weld fixture design we often use the holes in the product for locating the product part in the fixture.  What do you  think designers should ask when considering pinning a hole?

Welded Product Parts With Critical Dimensions Tween the Holes

 

 

The location of the hole in one product part can be precisely located in relation to the other product parts it is being welded to.  This is done by using the right design methods.

 

 

Major design difficulties can occur if some questions are not addressed before starting the 3D modeling process.

What do you  think designers should ask when considering pinning a hole?

What comes to mind for me is:

1) Is the hole location critical to the other parts it is welded to?  If it isn’t it doesn’t mean I WON’T pin the hole, just that maybe I can use a looser tolerance between the pin and the hole diameters, and I won’t need to use an adjustment shim pack to fine tune the locations of the pin.

2) Will you be able to get the product out of the fixture if you pin the hole?   Or, do you have to remove the pin before you are able to remove the product from the fixture?  We will be going over how to use a straight action clamp in weld fixture design for removing a pin in future blogs.

3) Are there other holes in that same product part that are pinned?  You need to take care here because you need to understand that there will be tolerance issues between the holes.  Yet , two holes makes it easy to locate the part at just the right angle.

4) Will you need to rough locate the part before it is pinned so that it is easier and faster for the pin to find the hole, or the hole to find the pin?

Rough Locator

Pink Rough Locator helps position the Product Part

 

For example, The product parts are dark gray.  In this picture, the pink round part is a rough locator, along with other locators it gets the product part in close proximity to perfect.  Then the removable purple pin with the help of a straight action clamp moves into place to hold the part in the perfect place while it is being welded.

5) Will you use a shoulder pin that can also act like a rest pad?

Shoulder Pins Can Be used as Rest Pads.

 

In this picture the left pin is a shoulder pin.  The product plate (in dark gray) rests on the shoulder.  The yellow part underneath it is a metal precision shim pack.

 

 

6) How will you prevent weld splatter from making the pin get stuck or welded into the hole?

As you see in the picture, the pins have chamfers on the ends where they protrude through the product plate.  The pins should be harder than the material you are welding.  That makes them last longer in the fixture and reduces the likelihood that the weld splatter will stick to them.  The material of the pin depends on the material you are welding.   In some instances you will need to add guards or shields to protect the pin from the weld splatter.  There is also a protective coating that can be added to protect the pin from the weld splatter sticking to it.

Did I miss some questions?  What else would you consider?

Please share this with a manufacturing engineer or machine builder that you know. We always can learn from the welders, assemblers, machinists and managers who work with our designs every day.

Susan Straley, Queen of Lean Machine Design at Rentapen

Susan Straley
Queen of Lean Machine Design

 

PS
Do you know someone with some singing or rapping talent? Video tape them singing our Shim King song and we will post it on our shim page and tweet it!