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Able Electropolishing Receives Gold Boeing Performance Excellence Award

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Able Electropolishing Receives Gold Boeing Performance Excellence Award
Chicago, IL January 21, 2010

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Able Electropolishing today announced that it has received a 2009 Boeing Performance Excellence Award. The Boeing Company issues the award annually to recognize suppliers who have achieved superior performance. Able Electropolishing maintained a Gold composite performance rating for each month of the 12-month performance period, from Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009.

This year, Boeing recognized 486 suppliers who achieved either a Gold or Silver level Boeing Performance Excellence Award. Able Electropolishing is one of only 128 suppliers to receive the Gold level of recognition.

“At Able Electropolishing, we strive to meet our customer’s requirements 100% of the time. Our management team meets regularly to address any customer ratings that do not place Able in their top tier status. The BPEA and other supplier performance awards provide our employees with affirmation that we are taking the right steps to achieve this goal.” John Glass, President Able Electropolishing supplies metal finishing services to Boeing for the CH-46 Sea Knight Helicopter.

Able provides electropolishing, passivating and other metal finishing services from our state of the art 40,000 square foot facility. Operating 24 hours a day with three equally staffed shifts, our facility provides prompt and reliable service. Our customers cover a wide array of industries including: aerospace, automotive, medical and food processing, to name a few.

For more information on the Boeing Performance Excellence Award, visit http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/doingbiz/supplier_portal/bpea.html .

Contact: Tom Glass, tomg@ableep.com

Electropolishing Moves into the NEW Millennium

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Electropolishing Moves into the New Millennium
by David Pokvitis, Co-Owner Able Electropolishing Co., Inc. Chicago, IL

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The metal finishing industry has been through some gut-wrenching times these past years.Ever tightening environmental regulations coupled with shortening lead times and new technologies has forced many in the field to change with the times.

Electropolishing offers an excellent example. The physics of the process are relatively unchanged from the 1950's, though the applications have grown immensely the past 5 years. when properly applied dissolves a minute amount of metal through a combination of chemicals and electrical current. This surface improvement process has been used on a host of metal parts including wire products, primarily as a brightening tool. Most wire products that were electropolished were fabricated from stainless steel to take advantage of the bright clean end finish.

Morerecently, design and manufacturing engineers have been applying the process to more functional applications. As the industry has evolved toward tougher quality standards, new applications including stress relief, sizing and fatigue life improvement have been put into place. Indeed, as the industry has been able to control material removal to .0001", entire new wire products in steel, Inconel, Monel, and other more exotic alloys have been processed.

As the process has been refined, lead times have shortened as well. Electropolishing job shops have employed more sophisticated job tracking systems to turn orders faster for customers. "We now see literally hundreds of orders a week arrive and depart by FedEX for delivery times that 10 years ago were considered impossible. As an industry, we need to remember that smaller inventories mean shorter lead times. We need to meet those needs or cease being viable".

Environmental regulation has had a huge impact on the industry. Literally thousands of metal finishers, many of them electropolishers have left the business due to the toughened regulations. These new regulations have also created new opportunities for the industry. "We have been forced to be more careful with our chemicals, and in doing so, have found ways to process with less waste. Reduced chemical costs have played a large part in our ability to keep prices from increasing for the past 10 years".

Electropolishing Returns to the Surface

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Electropolishing Returns To The Surface
An old-line process takes on new importance in metal finishing operations.
By David Z. Pokvitis Co-Owner Able Electropolishing Co., Inc. Chicago, Illinois 

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Metal finishing has long been regarded as a last-step process with the main purpose of making a metal part look attractive. Vendors of various metal finishing processes certainly emphasize looks over function in their Web sites and literature. However, manufacturing engineers are taking a closer look at some old-line processes to help solve some critical metal surface problems. Electropolishing is one such process worthy of closer inspection.

Electropolishing applications have been in place since the early 1950s. Advancements in the plating industry during World War II led to new technologies, and electropolishing grew from those developments. Through the decades, electropolishing has been confused with electroplating, thanks to the shared technology. While some of the physics in the two are similar, the processes themselves could not be more different.

In the simplest definition, electropolishing is the controlled removal of surface metal using a combination of chemicals and electrical current. While plating deposits metal on a surface, electropolishing is a reverse plating process, leaving no coating to chip, peel or flake off. The operating words are "controlled removal." Electropolishing, unlike other metal stripping processes, can be tightly controlled to remove metal 1 0.0001 inch, allowing the process to be used on a range of high-tolerance metal parts.

When a metal is electropolished, surface metal is dissolved along with grinding compounds, heat treat discoloration, weld scale and otherimperfections. An electropolished metal part is stripped of imbedded impurities, leaving the base metal surface clean and bright. While electropolishing got its start in the brightening of metal parts, automated process controls led to a host of metal improvement benefits that are used by manufacturers worldwide. A significant volume of shiny electropolished parts can be found buried in transmissions, as medical implants or as parts of complex assemblies performing a host of important functions.

Over the decades, the controlled metal removal benefits of the process have led to literally tens of thousands of applications. Though the application areas span many dozens of alloys and industries,they fall into four general categories of greatest interest to those involved with precision machining: deburring, micro?nishing, corrosion resistance and size control.

With the continuous increase in applications that require metal removal, electropolishing has the potential to bring cost reduction and higher quality to almost every industry.

Deburring

When properly applied, electropolishing dissolves metal from edges more rapidly than flat surfaces. This "current density" aspect of the process is similar to plating. Electroplating tends to build metal more rapidly on part edges. Since electropolishing removes surface metal, the physics of current density are put to a great advantage. Burrs are often reduced or completely eliminated. From a practical matter, fine burrs left from grinding, lapping, honing, milling, blanking or other similar processes are good candidates.
As electropolishing removes metal from the entire part, consideration should be made for tolerances on critical surfaces. Those parts with critical final dimensions needing deburring must accommodate the metal removal. An experienced electropolisher can provide appropriate AQL data that will show dimensions are within tolerance and that they have a good handle on process parameters.

Electropolishing is a non-mechanical process. Since the parts are not tumbled or impinged, highly complex or fragile parts are excellent candidates for the process. A part that has burrs over several surfaces can often be electropolished at a fraction of the cost of other more traditional methods.

Microfinishing

While current density is an advantage on edges and burrs, those same physics work on at surfaces as well. When metal is removed from the surface of a part, metal removal is more rapid on high points of the surface and less so on low points. Electropolishing has been used in low Ra applications where frictional resistance is critical. Hydraulic, medical, automotive and many other components needing smooth surfaces benefit from the smoothing aspects of electropolishing. Again, being an electrochemical process, all surfaces are processed simultaneously.

An important consideration here is that the process works equally well on dead soft to fully hardened components. Unlike any other metal removal process that depends on mechanical work (grinding, cutting, and so on), electropolishing can be performed after heat treat or induction hardening processes. Highly complex, fragile or multi-alloy assemblies are all possible candidates, as fixturing with other processes becomes problematic on these types of parts.

In general, Ra values are cut by 50 percent in the range of 4 to 32 Ra. Considering this range is where most low-friction applications lie, electropolishing may be a candidate on fragile or complex parts and assemblies. It is important to note that almost any conductive metal can be electropolished for a Ra application, including stainless, carbon steel, brass, aluminum, copper, Monel, Inconel and more. Since the surface is free of any other coating, the low-friction surface is more or less permanent, without the peeling or delamination problems common with low-frict/2007ion coatings.

Complex parts made of alloys such as copper can benefit from the microfinish of electropolishing, as shown in this before/after photo. Almost any other finishing method would have damaged this soft material.

Corrosion Resistance

Many industries have moved to harsh chemical environments for their stainless components. While some stainless alloys are tuned for corrosive environments, the metals often need help to meet or exceed corrosion standards for field use.

While passivation is often specified to improve corrosion resistance, electropolishing users have decades of data that show actual corrosion resistance 30 times higher than passivation. Two reasons make electropolishing the gold standard in improving corrosion resistance: imbedded impurities and surface irregularities.

Most metalworking operations imbed contamination into a metal part.Metal fragments, sulfur from lubricants, polishing and grinding compounds, and other contamination are normal and unavoidable parts of metalworking. That contamination, when closely mated with the metal alloy, creates the opportunity for galvanic corrosion to occur and spread through the base metal. The mating of contamination and base metal occurs on surfaces that trap moisture or chemicals, further accelerating the corrosion.

By removing surface metal, electropolishing removes the introduced contamination and reduces surface checks that retain moisture and chemicals. By reducing the opportunity for corrosion to begin and the hiding places for corrosion to take place, the electropolished metal is left more corrosion-resistant.

Electropolishing has been used for decades to salvage expensive gears and machined parts. In addition to reducing outside dimensions on splines and journals, the process can safely enlarge bores and milled slots.However, these other alloys will eventually rust or corrode since electropolishing is not a coating process.

While most corrosion applications are on stainless steel and related alloys, other metals benefit to a lesser extent. Carbon steel will not rust as readily, brass will not tarnish as rapidly, and aluminum will not pit as easily after electropolishing.

For those engineers looking to improve corrosion resistance, it is best to establish field test standards or salt spray/fog tests per ASTM B-117. Actual corrosion tests are far more predictive than theories of "high chromium layers" that try to predict laboratory standards for corrosion. Electropolishing vendors should be able to provide assistance in finding corrosion test parameters for specific industries.

Size Control

If electropolishing can remove a controlled amount of surface metal, what about salvaging oversized parts? Gear makers have been users of electropolishing to save expensive parts. An experienced practitioner of electropolishing can save plenty of parts from the scrap bin. If a part is machined oversized, is fabricated from material thicker than specification or grows in dimension from heat treat, it may be a good candidate for electropolishing. With the aid of modern masking materials and advanced tooling, electropolishing can focus on specific journals, external surfaces and inside bores.

In a few cases, electropolishing has been used to dimension parts that otherwise would require expensive and custom material orders. The part can be fabricated from standard material and its thickness reduced to final specification by dissolving the surface metal. As long as metal removal is less than 0.002 inch, electropolishing may provide a finished dimension at a fraction of the cost and leadtime of special materials.

The Next Step

As electropolishing has moved from art to science in the last 50 years,applications for the metal removal process have expanded rapidly. Thanks to advancement in controlling metal removal, almost every industry and metal is a candidate for experimentation. Significant improvements in cost reduction and quality can result from such exploration.

Pm Learn More
www.productionmachining.com  
Find these related articles on our Web site:
& Micro?nishing Helps Shop Meet Demanding Specs For Auto Part
See how this shop made the right move in its microfinishing operations.
& Getting More Bang For Your Deburring Buck
Thermal deburring blasts burrs, yet pampers parts.
& Burnishing For Improved Part Quality And Lower Costs
Roller burnishing is a method of producing an accurately sized, finely finished and densely compacted surface that resists wear.
Find a link to these articles at www.productionmachining.com/articles/090501.html  
For more information from Able Electropolishing, call (773) 277-1600.
Reprinted from September 2005, PRODUCTION MACHINING Magazine and
Copyright ) 2005 by Gardner Publications, Inc., 6915 Valley Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45244-3029.
For more information from Able Electropolishing, call (773) 277-1600.

Bacterial Biofilms Less Likely on Electropolished Steel

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Bacterial Biofilms Less Likely on Electropolished Steel

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Producing Cutting Tools In-House: What You Need to Know

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Producing Cutting Tools In-House: What You Need to Know

Advances in software and automation technology have made it easier to bring orthopedic cutting-tool design and grinding in-house. If you€re considering making that move, consider these points.

by Eric Schwarzenbach - Rollomatic Inc. 

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The preparation of bone for implants invariably requires cutting tools. It has often been observed that the design of these instruments is not in line with the design of the implants due to the lack of cooperation between different manufacturers. Bringing the cutting-tool design and grinding in-house can provide the orthopedic implant manufacturer with better designs, which could lead to an enhanced market position. Software and automation technologies now make in-house operations easier to set up and run, too. This article will cover what an implant manufacturer needs to know in order to set up an in-house operation: the materials, tool types, and various uses for these tools.

Bone cutting is one of the oldest surgical procedures. These days, one of the most commonly used cutting procedures is drilling holes into bones for inserting orthopedic implants. Other common cutting tools are blades for cutting, severing, and bone reduction. Surgical cutting tools, which are ground on a computer numerical control (CNC) tool grinder, usually have a positive cutting geometry and can be divided into rotary and flat tools. Most rotary tools are powered instruments, while the flat surgical cutters are used manually. A great deal of the research in metal cutting over the last 100 years has been applied to the geometry and design of surgical cutting tools.

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New Ideas to Polish Up Your Profits

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New Ideas to Polish Up Your Profits
by David Z. Pokvitis Co-Owner Able Electropolishing Co., Inc. Chicago,IL 

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In the fast-paced fastener industry, some things don't change. Customers are always looking for improved finishes, better performance and value. Electropolishing is a process that is worth a close look to set your company apart from the pack.

Electropolishing is a metal finishing process similar in theory to electroplating. Parts are immersed in a chemical bath and electrical current is applied to the parts. While electroplating deposits metal on fasteners, electropolishing carefully dissolves surface metal. Electropolished fasteners look plated, but the similarities end there.

Electropolished surfaces reveal the true base metal and as a result, there are no coatings to chip or peel. This is especially important in threaded areas and in applications where contamination from foreign coatings is a problem.

While electropolishing has been commercially available since the early 1950's, most in the fastener industry still have not grasped the advantages of this controlled metal removal process. When done properly, electropolished fasteners are brighter, smoother, more corrosion resistant and better resist galling in one cost effective operation. While nearly any metal fastener can benefit from this proven process, it is the stainless fastener that seems to benefit most. Best of all, hydrogen embrittlement (a problem with plated fasteners) is normally not a problem with electropolishing.

As the surface is metal dissolved, surface cracks, imbedded impurities and small burrs are removed from the entire part. The process has been nearly perfected by a handful of companies, and surface metal removal can be controlled to +/-.0001", protecting valuable threads, journals and other critical dimensions. Being a non-mechanical process, the more fragile or complex the part is,the more economical electropolishing can be. Part damage, especially to threads is rare in the hands of an expert

Beyond the bright, chrome-like finish, many find corrosion resistance to be a great benefit of electropolishing. If you are acquainted with passivation to improve corrosion resistance, then think of electropolishing as the gold standard for stainless and related alloys. Electropolishing is a named and approved process under ASTM-A967, which sets passivation standards for many industries.

Literally hundreds of salt-spray tests have been performed on a huge range of stainless alloy fasteners with performance measured in hundreds and even thousands of hours under ASTM-B117. An electropolished fastener is free of subsurface contamination and also free of surface irregularities. These two improvements allow metals to resist corrosion longer, and retain their bright finish. Do you have customer looking for a brighter, more corrosion resistant fastener?

So electropolishing is great for brightening, and cleaning fasteners. How else does this process add value for your customers? In recent years,Able Electropolishing Co. of Chicago has developed a proprietary bulk electropolishing method that can reduce finishing costs by 90%. The bulk process has wider tolerance requirements, but has been a big hit with many volume users. This has allowed electropolishing to be competitive with other more common finishing techniques.

No finishing solution is complete without considering vendor service. The dedicated electropolisher you choose needs to not only aware of, but completely tooled for the fast-paced distributor. What good is an order if it is one day late? Look for a supplier with 24 hour plant operations to move orders fast.Make sure your supplier has a huge inventory of tooling so an order can move without delay. Require your electropolishing vendor to be ISO 9001:2000 certified, as it is a strong indicator of their dedication to quality. A good supplier has systems in place to drop-ship, package and break orders to your needs to minimize extra handling. And above all, make certain your electropolisher has the staff and technical support to help you shine in front of your important customer. Smart distributors around the country are adding electropolishing to their line card as a way to boost sales and profits. A world-class electropolisher can be your partner to new business opportunities.