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Subcontract machinist and fabricator Richard Haim, owner of RPH Manufacturing (www.jitkanban.com), is the sole operator of 14 machine tools, including four Hurco VM-series VMCs (vertical machining centres). Yet even single-handedly he still manages to ship 98 varieties of component totalling more than 45,000 items annually out of the door of his Wimborne factory. Helping him to achieve this are Chick QwikLOK twin-station clamps, manufactured in the US and supplied by sole UK sales agent 1st Machine Tool Accessories (www.1mta.com).
Typically eight or 10 round components may be secured at a time using aluminium jaws machined to match the profile of the parts. Winding a single handle moves two jaws simultaneously and rapidly towards a central, fixed jaw. Opposing forces are cancelled and a reliable reference point is provided for accurate machining. Moreover, the Chick jaws create a pull-down action when they close, ensuring rigid workholding.
Mr Haim commented, “The best thing about these clamps is their repeatability of positioning to within 10 to 15 microns, better than the 20 microns that the US workholding equipment manufacturer specifies in its literature. So every part we machine comes off perfect.”
The extended cutting cycles that the Chick workholding system allows means that Mr Haim is able to walk away from a machining centre for longer to carry out other production operations on the shop floor, dramatically raising the throughput of machined parts. An added advantage of multiple part fixturing is that cycle time per component is reduced by consolidating each tool change across all of the parts, reducing ATC time by a factor equal to the number of components held in the jaws.
Six years ago, Mr Haim introduced a proprietary product, Parallel Lock, to help other machinists keep parallels in position on a machine vice as it is being closed. The Chick workholding system is also employed when machining 14 of the metal and plastic components that go into each 74-piece kit.
Mr Haim continued, “Whether it is one of our own components or a contract part, say an F1 bracket, multiple fixturing in a Chick QwikLOK coupled with the Patterns feature in Hurco’s MAX conversational control is a huge time saving.
“For example, at the control I can program a slot mill to machine one part and then tell it to step and repeat the same operation across all of the components, simply by creating a Pattern block to define the X,Y location of each of them on a grid.”
Larger components held singly in each jaw can be retained with a high clamping force. It enables, for instance, a cylindrical manifold having a 3-degree taper to be secured on just 3 mm of material at the bottom of the part prior to machining.
Every component produced in the Wimborne factory is inspected and a first article report is emailed to the customer as a PDF before the order has even been shipped, often under a consignment stocking and Kanban delivery arrangement. With such an accent placed on quality control, especially in view of RPH’s specialisation in supplying the demanding motorsport and aerospace sectors, the tier-one subcontractor invested £70,000 in metrology equipment in 2025 alone.
For more information on CLEVER WORKHOLDING HELPS ONE MACHINIST OPERATE MULTIPLE MILLS talk to 1st Machine Tool Accessories