Ashton Seals Team Always Available To Engineer A Solution For A Technical Challenge

Recently, the PTFE disc that push-fits into the bottom of the guard on one of our machines was damaged, meaning it would not stay in place properly. This disc is important for the running of the machine as it helps to keep material flat for a good finish. Fortunately, at Ashtons we have the skills and expertise to solve this problem in-house.

Firstly, we measured the old disc to be 7mm tall and retrieved some similarly size material from our wide range of PTFE stock.

Bearing in mind we needed to do this as one piece, we would have to machine the other areas flat to allow the part to stick up for push-fitting. We drew up the disc on our CAD system taking this into consideration, making repeated circles in the areas which needed to be machined flat to two different heights. Each of these heights was done as a different manufacturing stage, and lastly the inner hole was cut out and the outside of the disc completely cut away from the PTFE.

With the 2.2mm drill bit used, we had a great finish on this part. After this, we tested the push fit which was snug on the first attempt and was then finished on a belt sander to create the smooth chamfer on the outside edge.

The Ashton Seals team are always available to engineer a solution for a technical challenge from first conception through prototyping to production parts. The flexibility of Ashton Seals’ manufacturing facility combined with our extensive expertise means we are equally skilled to produce a one-off prototype or a multi-thousand run both quickly and competitively.