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It is one thing as an engineering company to purchase raw materials, whole assemblies, tools, large items of equipment or a whole production line project from recognised brand-named suppliers. However, it is not always easy to get certain items for your factory engineers to build or adapt a mechanical/electrical production facility. The purpose of this article therefore, is to give you some idea what is available off-the-shelf in the way of small precision engineering stock items.
Spur gears are needed for a whole range of industrial projects ranging from bespoke conveyers, mobile machinery, farm machinery modifications and motor drives in clean environments or a complicated milling operation. Such projects need a whole range of stock components not normally available from your local friendly hardware merchants. To complete your project, you need items ranging from precision couplings, chains, motors, lead screws, spindles, castors, pillars, bushes, gearboxes, right angle drives, V-belts, pulleys, chain drives, universal joints, rod ends, linkages, collars, clamps and keys, brakes and clutches.
Actually, the engineering industry in the UK as a whole has a number of specialist manufacturers and stockists with a huge range of engineering stock items to serve wider industry. For example, precision-made spur gears are available in several materials and sizes. For example, at the low-cost end, acetal gears are injection moulded plastic with machined bores, straight-cut teeth with a pressure angle of 20 deg, capable of withstanding 100 deg.C and high chemical resistance. For more durability, delrin gears come with a similar vast range of sizes that are machine cut and milled for great accuracy.
Brass spur gears are widely used where sparks cannot be entertained in hazardous atmospheres.
Steel spur gears are supplied with our without hub in a number of grades of steel to suit the application and size. Stainless steel versions are available for use in say clean or exposed environments where ease of cleaning is a factor or rust unacceptable.
Another such engineering stock items where accuracy of manufacture and wide size range are available are precision ball screws for heavy duty industrial applications, miniature precision ball screws and many other advanced development projects. Accuracies of the order of 50 microns per 300 millimetres with axial backlash as low as 20 microns are achievable. These ball screws are available in virtually any size, lead size and length. Each part can be supplied with custom machined journal ends and integrated thrust bearing and radial mounts. Also, end threaded, cylindrical and flanged ball nuts are available, as are a wide range of pitches and leads.
Another engineering stock item available in a wide range of materials are castors. The industrial castor offers smooth running and wear resistance.
These industrial castor products meet the needs of a variety of industries and the demands of many different applications. These are available in a number of standard configurations including wheel only, brakeless wheels with brackets and zinc plated turning or fixed plates, brakeless wheels with an assembly pass, brakeless wheels with fixed plates and brackets and wheels featuring stainless steel turning plates and brakes.
Typical coverings are a hard polyurethane and a chemical and oil-resistant polyamide centre. The axles of these castors are a precision calibrated tube designed to allow the wheel bore to rotate freely onto the axle. Turning plate bracket industrial castor models feature direct contact between the ball race ring and plate along with two ball turns to provide a high degree of manoeuvrability and to reduce clearance.
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