Custom Wire Basket For Oddly Shaped Parts
Custom Wire Basket For Oddly Shaped Parts
Our customer needed a custom wire basket made of stainless steel to hold cast aluminum parts through a vacuum impregnation process that cleans the parts, coats the parts with chemical sealant, spins the parts at several hundred RPMs to remove excess sealant, then cures the sealant with a hot air blast.
- Part Number: MAE-241522 - Rev B
Customer Requirements
Our customer needed custom baskets to hold the oddly shaped parts in a very specific orientation to optimize cleaning and coating. Also, the baskets needed to hold the part securely through the full rotation process. And the design needed to be as open and light as practical so the cleaning and chemical sprays aren’t blocked and to minimize “drag-through” of the impregnation chemicals. It was very important that the baskets were easy and intuitive for the operators to load the parts in the correct orientation in a high volume production line. The Godfrey and Wing brand machine processes two loaded baskets per cycle so they needed to stack securely. And the baskets needed to hold as many parts as possible to maximize throughput.
Our Solution
Three M Tool designed and built a custom stainless steel basket with a 1/4″ diameter rod outer frame with all frame joints TIG welded for strength. The interior of the basket has several levels of 3/16″ diameter rod grids creating 12 uniquely shaped pockets to locate and separate customer parts. The bottom is lined with 2 mesh x .047 welded wire mesh. And there is an extra frame on the bottom of the basket for secure stacking. The basket is 304 Stainless Steel Construction throughout.