PEER custom bores sprockets and keyways
In addition to traditional commercial sprocket offerings, PEER Chain & Sprockets announced it can now custom bore any size sprocket that has an existing keyway – and deliver them within days of an order.
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| PEER Chain & Sprocket President Drew Beedle and machinist Ray. |
How do they do it? Meet Ray. He is PEER Chain’s machinist and CNC operator who has decades of experience specializing in boring industrial sprockets. And while custom-boring may sound like an easy task, Ray is repurposing pieces of inventory that already have existing keyways and set screws – a challenging machining process because of the existing keyway.
“The boring bar loves 100% material,” Ray said. “When boring a bigger hole in an existing sprocket, you have to drill through the existing keyway, and when you get through, the carbide is hit with a baseball bat-like crack. You don’t want that because it could undermine the bore’s dimension. The carbide starts screaming and yelling at you until it finally hits material on the other side of the keyway. Our process takes the ‘baseball bat’ out of the game.”
PEER Chain provides a wide range of finished bore and plain bore sprockets. Finished bore sprockets are machined to American National Standards Institute (ANSI) specification tolerances with one keyway aligned to the center of a sprocket tooth and with two set screws. One set screw is centered on the keyway and the other at 90 degrees.
Ray is mentoring other skill-driven employees on the boring lathe so they can quickly help customers with their immediate needs.
“Often it’s our customers’ customers who need the sprocket yesterday, so when we can turn the project around for them in a day or two, it’s very satisfying,” he said. “If we didn’t have these sprockets already in-house, it could be up to a 20-week delay.”
PEER Chain, which is ISO 2001 certified, purchased the lathe to re-bore sprockets to reduce slow moving inventory, said PEER President Drew Beadle. “We were able to bring Ray into our family fold, leveraging his experience to offer customers customized sprockets with no minimum order requirements. If they want a single sprocket with a certain imperial measure boring, we will produce it.”
Beadle said PEER has no limitations on customization of the finished size bore.
“For our customers, it’s all about speed to market,” he added.
INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The January/February issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about MSC Industrial Supply. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dr. Bharani Nagarathnam and Frank Hurtte, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.
