News | January 7, 2000

At Workholding Supplier, They Practice What They Preach

At Workholding Supplier, They Practice What They Preach

N/A (Cleveland, OH) is a manufacturer of workholding systems and components. One of the company's more popular products is the Ball Lock mounting system, which provides a means to rapidly locate and lock flat surfaces—usually, a fixture and a subplate. The system is at the heart of quick-change setups the company uses to machine components on its own VMCs.

Operator checks small workholding component after machining on VMC. Fixture plates containing multiple Chick vises, visible on machine table, are swapped in and out in less than a minute.

New Facility, New Manufacturing Layout
Jergens recently moved into a new, 100,000 ft2 building on Cleveland's East Side. The company took advantage of the move to arrange the shop functionally, with cells for rough and finish machining of a variety of parts from chuck jaws and drill bushings to threaded inserts, handwheels, chuck jaws, and locating components.

Equipment on the shop floor ranges from vintage Warner & Swasey screw machines to new CNC Swiss-style lathes equipped with bar feeders, and from knee-type milling machines to horizontal and vertical machining centers. It is on the latter that Ball-Lock system components are used to cut setup times, in some cases to less than a minute.

Multiple Parts, Fast Changeovers
The Ball Lock system consists of a steel subplate, multiple steel or aluminum fixture plates with bushings installed, and shanks for locating and holding the fixture plates. While one fixture plate is on the machine, the operator loads parts on the other to minimize downtime and reduce changeover time.



The patented Ball Lock system can provide up to 20,000 lb of hold-down force using a combination of force generators. The threaded screw exerts force onto a center ball, which directs this force onto three balls that register on a taper seat. The whole system is locked down with only a couple of turns of the set screw.

The fixture plates accept popular machine vises. "Jigsaw" interlocking plates can be configured to minimize center distance between vises, allowing for more parts on a production run. They can be changed in less than one minute without the need to reindicate, and are available for any 4- or 6-in. vise.

Sine fixture keys allow mounting of the subplate on the machine's slotted table without indicating, and also allow mounting of the fixture plate on a toolroom mill without indicating—a useful feature when machining location points on the fixture.

Holding all the components together are the patented Ball Lock shanks, which locate and lock the fixture plates to the subplate with 0.0005 in. repeatability. Depending on size, the shanks can provide up to 20,000 lb of hold-down force per shank.

Jergens Inc., 15700 S. Waterloo Rd., Cleveland, OH 44110. Phone (800) 537-4367; fax (216) 481-6193.