Thrufeed centerless grinding works by passing the workpiece through the machine, where material is removed by a grinding wheel. It has a broad range of uses and is considered to be one of the most efficient grinding processes. Due to tight tolerances, it can provide smoother surface finishes. Thrufeed centerless grinding works best on higher quantities where the ground diameter is the largest, as the part can more easily pass through the grinding zone. We can grind parts with a diameter ranging from 0.063” to 2.5”, with tolerances as tight as 0.0003” and surface finishes better than 8 Ra.
The picture on the left shows an example of a typical thrufeed centerless grinding job. As you can see, the bushings are sent through the grinder one after another. An operator on the other side of the machine sizes the parts utilizing micrometers, air gages, or other similar measuring equipment.
When quantities are high enough, Ripley Machine will invest in various automation equipment to help maximize efficiency while ensuring the highest of quality.
We have worked with several customers who were struggling to maintain a tolerance or surface finish on an expensive CNC Lathe or CNC Swiss machine. We worked with our customer to allow them to hold a loose tolerance on their turning operation and we ground the parts after machining. While this obviously added the cost of grinding, our customers agreed that our grinding charges were minimal when compared to their savings on the machining of the part. With the struggles for skilled labor over the last few years we have found that the addition of grinding operations has actually helped to address the problems. By allowing for a looser tolerance on a CNC Lathe or CNC Swiss machine, there is less skill required for the lathe operation. Parts are then sent to Ripley Machine where our trained grinding experts, grind the parts to the tight tolerances required.
Centerless bar stock grinding is similar to thrufeed grinding in that the workpiece passes through the machine. It is spun on a regulating wheel while a material is removed by a grinding wheel. Ripley Machine & Tool has the capabilities to grind bars up to 1” in diameter and 14’ in length. We are able to grind customer supplies material or provide the material ourselves from one of our qualified vendors, and have experience with grinding a wide variety of materials including tool steel, stainless steel, aluminum, Hallestoy, brass, copper, plastic, and more.
Ripley Machine has utilized our centerless bar stock grinding programs to help our customers address the supply chain issues created over the last few years. Our customers may not be able to get their desired bar stock size due to supply chain issues. We have allowed our customers to purchase a larger diameter material than required and ground that material to the customer’s desired finish diameter.
Our bar stock grinding services also come in handy for customers with CNC Swiss Machines. When the cost and lead time for a guide bushing and collets for a CNC Swiss machine exceed what is demanded for a project, we can grind material to a size that matches a currently stocked collet and/or guide bushing. We have had several customers who were faced with the spending several hundred dollars and waiting several weeks in order to get a collet and/or guide bushing that would fit their purchased material. We were able to grind the bar stock to a size that fit the collets and guide bushing that our customer already had. We were able to complete the grinding in a couple of days and cheaper than purchasing new guide bushings and collets. In addition to saving cost and time, our customer was also working with ground material which allowed for them to hold tighter tolerances on their Swiss machine.
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