Smart Honing Technology for Aerospace Hydraulic Pumps

Shop's customers note new technology makes a 60 millionths tolerance look generous "We don't believe it!" – that's how experienced machinists reacted to their first encounter with a new honing system that produced nine bores per part with only 0.000020" (0.5 µm) variation, all day long, with essentially no operator attention. That's 2.21 Cpk process capability.

It's game changing technology in a shop like Waltz Brothers, Inc., a precision grinding and machining operation where these parts – flight-critical hydraulic pumps – are produced by the hundreds every year. The machinists' reaction was expected by company president Larry Waltz. He knows how hard it is to hit this tolerance window machining ONE bore per part, much less nine.

With nine opportunities to make a micron-sized mistake on an expensive workpiece, it takes great skill and many time-consuming machine/measure iterations to make these parts on a standard honing machine.

The new SV-1015 hone not only produces perfect bores, it also records its final air gaging measurements to track with each serialized part. "When I showed this new machine to a customer for whom we'd been making these parts, they were so impressed they wanted us to commit to a blanket order for all their parts for the next five years," Waltz said. "In that instant, we validated our painstaking decision to adopt this technology."

Download the full case study