Manufacturing of TS-Aligner
TS-Aligner products are made in our own shop near Boise, Idaho. Doing the machining ourselves enables us to offer the best possible quality at the lowest possible cost.
Here's our CNC Vertical Machining Center (VMC), a Haas VF-3. Computer control means that each operation is carried out quickly and efficiently, exactly like the previous one. This minimizes our labor costs and delivers very high quality results.
This photo shows rough extrusion cut-offs (TS-Aligner Jr. bases) being loaded onto fixture plates which have been mounted on a pallet. This is done while the machine is working on the parts which are mounted on the other pallet. I have designed my own custom extrusion dies so that I can obtain aluminum in shapes that are very close to their final form. This saves a great deal of time and scrap, helping me to keep cost low.
Each part is clamped into it's own nest on the fixture plate. The fixture plate serves to accurately locate the parts so that all of them are machined exactly the same.
When the machine is done working on the current load of parts it stops to allow the pallet to be rolled onto the shuttle cart.
Then the shuttle cart is moved so that the pallet load of raw parts can be rolled into the machine.
Here is another view of the raw parts being rolled into the machine on their pallet. The "receiver" (the big black platform) guides the pallet and ensures that it is properly located.
A knob on the receiver locks the pallet into position. The parts are now ready to be machined.
Here an "endmill" is used to trim the sides of each part. The white liquid being sprayed on the cutter is a water based coolant which prevents the aluminum from sticking to the cutting edges and washes the chips away.
In another operation, a "facemill" is used to flatten the top surface of the parts.
Each and every TS-Aligner Jr. is very carefully calibrated on a granite surface plate using precision ground angle blocks. All of the parts that ship with a particular unit, including it's dial indicator, are used in this calibration. This ensures that compensation is made for the minor variations in individual parts. It also gives us a chance to test the function and accuracy of each dial indicator that we ship.
Last revised: January 21, 2006.
