Case Studies

5012 Bullet Machine for .50 Caliber Shells from the Army.

We received this machine from the Army. The machine is specialized to make .50 caliber jacketed projectiles for the Army. This machine came to us from their on base storage facility. The machine had not been used for production in decades. Many of the functioning components for the feed and transfer systems had been scavenged from this machine over the years to keep other machines operational. Our customer wanted this machine completely rebuilt and updated with the latest technology so that they could increase production from this machine. The machine was totally disassembled. All painted components were sand blasted to remove all existing paint. The components were then all inspected and machined to OEM specifications. The crank shaft was straightened and polished; slide and frame were bored and milled to ensure parallelism. We engineered and installed an Ortlinghaus clutch conversion for this press to replace the full revolution mechanical clutch. Air counterbalance cylinders were also added to this machine to reduce press wear and increase stopping time.

We also designed and installed an Allen-Bradley Clutch/brake control kit. The Rockwell Clutch/Brake Control system used on this press is a DC version with customized code written specifically for D & S Machine Repair, Inc. It utilizes two independent MicroLogix1500 processors. Both controllers monitor all clutch/brake I/O and exchange information about machine status via hard wire I/O. Both processors independently generate operator prompts and machine faults which are displayed on the Panel View 600 Prompts & Faults Screen.

All of these features we added allowed our customer to increase production speeds while also incorporating a much higher level of die protection.

3000 Ton 168 x 66 TF Machine relocated from Tennessee to Northern Indiana.

This 3000 Ton 168 x 66 TF machine was rebuilt as it was being relocated from Tennessee to northern Indiana. The machine had to be completely disassembled for transportation. The main weldments were transported to the customer’s property and stored outside during construction of the new facility. The internal components were transported to D & S Machine Repair, Inc.

The crown had major cracks in the supporting structures. We were able to clean, prep, weld repair, and stress relieve the crown on site. The crown bores were all machined on location using our portable boring machine. The pin centers were changed to take out some of the extra gear backlash years of wear had produced. We made new eccentric pins, replaced eccentric gears and connection bushings, made new intermediate gear and drive pinion, rebuilt counterbalances and overload cylinders. The clutch and brake was rebuilt with new bladders, pucks, springs, seals, bearings, and new clutch spider.