A customer who produces upscale acrylic furniture came to us with a problem they were encountering with the edge finish on thick gage acrylic. They were cutting the acrylic, then hand sanding multiple times with increasingly higher grit levels of sand paper, followed with flame polishing for the final, smooth, highly polished edge they needed. Even using this costly, labor-intensive process, they did not get the consistent polished edge quality they sought. They hoped we could provide them with an alternative method of polishing the acrylic that would solve the problems with the inconsistent edge quality and very high labor costs.

We worked with our customer to utilize our Weeke Diamond Polisher to finish the edges of their parts, followed by a buffing process to obtain a consistent, clear, highly polished edge that fully met their needs. We were able to take this process completely out of their shop and reduce their total cost to obtain the high optical quality edge they were not able to consistently obtain themselves.

We always seek to meet or exceed our customers’ needs while providing cost effectiveness that allows them to go to market with the highest quality products at competitive pricing. How can we help your business grow and prosper?

A distributor of stretch wrapping equipment approached us about a problem they were having with transit rollers on the main carriage of a particular type of stretch wrapping machine that was putting an unusual load on the rollers – compressive, bending and impact. These rollers had been made from black acetal engineered plastic, an excellent material for many applications, for years. But in this application, they were breaking, in some cases after only days or weeks of operation, due to the conditions and the acetal’s limitations under the combination of loads. We were asked to find a cost-effective material that could withstand the conditions for long periods without failing catastrophically. After learning as much as we could about the specific nature of the loads and conditions the part sees, we chose a machinable thermoset polyester composite material from which to produce these parts. During testing, the distributor was not able to make the rollers fail, even in conditions exceeding those the parts would see in application. And after a significant amount of time in actual operation, no parts have failed or show measurable wear. The customer has now specified this material for all new and replacement rollers for this machine. The OEM of these machines is also changing to the composite material for these rollers as the standard offering on all production and eliminating the acetal as well.

The benefits to this solution were many: the customer does not have to send service technicians into the field to replace these rollers, the end users do not lose time in production, which could be hours to days for each failure, and the cost of the new rollers is comparable to the acetal rollers that had been a long-term problem, making for a tangible financial and performance benefit to the distributor and their customers.

ISE is much more than a precision machining company – we offer solutions based on extensive knowledge of materials and applications, design assistance and quality managed production. Let us demonstrate how we can help you with solutions for your challenging components and performance issues.