Lapmaster Wolters: Advanced Lapping and Polishing Technology
Precise surface finishing - for all materials and industries. This is the focus of Lapmaster Wolters' work and range of products. We visit the company at GrindTec 2016 in Augsburg and find out what new and innovative solutions are available for precision surface machining.
Fine grinding machine: Surface finishing with the AC 700 F
The owner-managed traditional company Lapmaster Wolters advertises with the finest surface finishing and depth! Let's take a look at whether this is true. Simone Dericks: What does your company stand for? Sebastian Jessen: Our company manufactures machines for the precision machining of surfaces. This involves grinding in particular, but also lapping and polishing precision workpieces.
Simone Dericks: We are now standing here with the AC 700 F. What exactly is this machine? Sebastian Jessen: This is a machine for fine grinding workpieces. The 700 stands for the fine grinding wheel size and is therefore 700 millimeters.
Simone Dericks: And can you see the effect of this sanding before and after? Sebastian Jessen: You can actually only see the surface quality of the processing we do. In other words, what is the grinding pattern like. We remove tenths and hundredths of a millimeter and then move into flatnesses of µs. You can't see that with the naked eye. This type of fine grinding machine is always used when particularly high parallelism, flatness and thicknesses have to be produced on workpieces. You have to imagine that this workpiece has two surfaces and these surfaces have to be parallel to each other at a µ. The same applies to the thickness. These workpieces are then installed and the thickness tolerances usually add up. For this reason, manufacturers also try to produce the thickness of such workpieces with a spread of less than one micron. Simone Dericks: What advantages does a customer have when buying an AC 700? Sebastian Jessen: In addition to the technical points, which of course concern precision and stability, the customer is of course buying a machine from Lapmaster Wolters with a decades-long tradition. We offer customers a selection of machine configurations that are specifically and perfectly tailored to their application. Of course, they receive these with an optimally designed process that we develop in-house. Simone Dericks: What else do you have in your range? Sebastian Jessen: We have brought along our new Micron machine, which is used to produce profiles in a surface. I would like to hand over to our product manager, Mr. Garzke, who will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Simone Dericks: Great, I'm looking forward to that - we'll take a look!
Profile sanding machine with state-of-the-art CNC control
Simone Dericks: Hello Mr. Garzke, greetings! You are now the specialist for this machine. What do we have here? Sascha Garzke: Exactly, we have a Micron machine here - that's a profile grinding machine. This means that predetermined contours are introduced into the workpiece with very high precision. We build the machines in different sizes, which basically only differ in width.
Simone Dericks: What exactly characterizes this machine here? Sascha Garzke: It can be described quite simply in three words: Reliable - Flexible - Compact. Reliability. Of course, this means that we deliver a good workpiece to the customer at the end. We have the most modern CNC control system that we offer from various manufacturers. Furthermore, the machine bed of the machine is completely filled with a special concrete that achieves optimum properties in terms of vibration and thermal stability. Our spindles are also water-cooled to minimize thermal expansion. In terms of flexibility, we can always tailor the machine components to the customer's requirements. For example, we have different spindle types that differ in terms of performance. In terms of speeds and diameters. Furthermore, together with our partners in automation technology, we can also offer customized solutions when it comes to increasing productivity. We also offer machine versions that work with an index table - this means that the parts are ground in the rear part of the machine and the loading and unloading process takes place in the front part. This can be done manually or, as mentioned, with automation. This naturally increases the throughput enormously.
The subject of compactness. We build our machines very small. The smallest of our machines is only 1.5 meters wide, which enables us to grind productively in a very confined space. We achieve this through so-called moving real head technology. We can see this here on the machine. The grinding spindle performs all movements in all axes without the workpiece moving. This enables us to achieve these small machine dimensions. I think that sets us apart from the competition. Simone Dericks: Where do you see yourselves in the future? Where is the trend heading? Sascha Garzke: We want to become stronger in the automotive sector. We are well represented there at the moment. We want to further strengthen our position in the hydraulics industry and also in the aviation sector. Simone Dericks: Yes, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and wish you all the best and a very successful trade fair!
