Weld Fixture Specialists Offers New Products to Manufacturers.


Rentapen Inc. Listens to Customers, Makes Alterations To Product Line And Creates Four New RAPid Blocks™

On June 21, 2013 Rentapen Inc. added four New RAPid Blocks™ to their collection of six RAPid Blocks™.  Rentapen Inc., located in Waukesha, WI, first developed RAPid Tooling Components™ in the year 2002.

The RAPid Tooling Component™ product line was inspired by Rentapen’s customers’ need for dramatic reductions in the overall design, set-up, and operation costs of welding and other tooling fixtures. Rapid Tooling Components™ (RTC) reduce the design cost of the fixture by eliminating the need to design, detail and check similar parts over and over again.

 “We found that it was costing our customer $100 to design, check, cut, and create a block.  We realized we could do it cheaper.  With RAPid Tooling Components™, it now costs that customer about $37 for the same block and they don’t have to design and check it each time,” said Susan Straley, President and Owner of Rentapen.  “Our product line saves time in the design and build of product part holding fixtures.”

The new RAPid Blocks™ are RB11, RB12, RB16, & RB19 and can be downloaded for free on Rentapen’s website.  RAPid Blocks™ are standard yet versatile parts that are used with locating pins, rest pads, jig feet, and other parts in a weld fixture.

The new blocks are improvements to a now discontinued blocks; which was limited to only a 3/8 screw size.  These improvements allow the customer to use any screw size (1/2, 3/8, ¼, & 5/16) needed to complete the design of the weld fixture.

The RB11 & RB16 is designed with two drill and counter-bored holes used to screw the block to the plate and one press fit hole to hold a dowel.  In the front of the RB11 there is one round screw hole used for front and back shim adjustability.  The RB16 is designed the exact same way but with one large difference.  Instead of a round hole, it is designed with a slot for optimum side to side adjustability of up to ¼”.

The RB12 & RB19 is designed with three drill and counter-bored holes used to screw the block to the plate and two press fit holes to hold a dowels.

The RB12 and RB19 are designed to be longer, in order to locate other parts and to keep them square on the weld fixture.  Similar, to the design of the RB11, the RB12 has round screw holes used for shim adjustability in 3 directions of up to 1/8”.

RB12 has two oversized holes; located at each end of the block. To solidly hole the subassembly against the RB12 but still is able to allow adjustments in the side to side and up and down directions.  Rentapen created a weld fixture design lesson with slide show to explain better with images.

The RB19 is designed similar to the RB12 but it is designed with a two slots for additional side to side adjustability.

To provide their customers with the best price, Rentapen makes each RAPid Block™ when it is ordered. Keeping finished goods inventory costs low and passing on the savings to Rentapen’s customers.

Rentapen Inc., Weld Fixture Specialists is home of RAPid Tooling Components™ used in weld fixture design and build. Rentapen Inc, located in Waukesha, WI, has been providing machine tool design services to manufactures since 1976.  Rentapen is a Certified Woman Owned Business and home of RAPid Tooling Components™.

The Diamond Pin, The Shoulder Screw, and The Bushing-Weld Fixture Design Lesson

Now that we have a Diamond Pin that is only touching the part on the top and the bottom of the pin, we need to make the contact points of the pin remain in the same up and down orientation.

To say it differently, we have to make sure the diamond pin doesn’t rotate.  We can do this with a flat cut on the pin and a shoulder screw mounted next to the cut.  Let’s take a look at the video…

 

Thanks for joining me as we learn together. I hope you are having as much fun learning as I am!

Next week we will talk about how this sub assembly is shimmed and mounted.

The Queen of Lean Machine Design

Using a Pin for Orienting vs Locating

We are continuing our discussion of the use of a Straight Line Action Clamp in a weld fixture.

The purpose of the clamp in our sample fixture is to move a locating pin into a hole in the product part to locate.  Then, after the product is welded, the Straight Line Action Clamp can retract the pin, so that the product can be removed from the weld fixture.

In this weeks blog video, a round locating pin is replaced by a diamond pin in our sample fixture. using a straight line action clamp. Instead of locating the customer’s product in the weld fixture, we have changed the purpose of the pin. It is now only orienting one product part with respect to the other product parts to which it will be welded.

Next time we will be talking more about this diamond pin and the bushing block it is moving in.

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Thanks for learning with me.   Please feel free to leave your comments and questions in the comment section below.

The Queen