Material Handling is a necessary part of most manufacturing processes. It involves lifting, moving, and dumping products, ingredients or different components. Although a lot of material handling equipment is still powered by humans, such as carts and dollies, there is also a component that relies heavily on hydraulic-powered equipment. Hydraulics can improve safety, function and power in material handling equipment. In fact, hydraulics make much of the material handling machinery you currently know possible. Even the smallest production or distribution facilities use hydraulic power.

Pallet Jacks

Pallet jacks are the perfect example. Shipments are strapped to pallets when they are too large for humans to lift and carry independently. The simplest pallet jack is able to lift and move the wooden skids around using a hydraulic bottle jack. Although it is often considered a human-powered cart, it can lift anywhere up to 5,000lbs or more due to the incredible power of the hydraulic system.

That isn’t the only part powered by hydraulics, however. The pallet jack employs a single-acting bottle jack mounted atop the pivoting steering wheels. A lever remotely operates the two-position valve within the handle, and when flipped forward allows pumping action to occur. The simple up and down reciprocating action of the handle sends fluid into the ram, lifting the pallet a few inches off the ground to facilitate easy transport. Many variations of the pallet jack provide a full selection balancing price with productivity. Some units employ electrically driven hydraulic pumps for easy and rapid lift, while others gain electric wheel drive to aid operators with heavy loads.

Fork Truck

Oftentimes, a manufacturing or distribution center will have a storage system that towers over where a simple pallet jack could reach. When this is the case, it is inevitable that a fork truck is part of the equation. A small fork truck, called a stacker, is able to do higher lifting because they use hydraulic levers or electronic joysticks, and their short profile allows the stacker to fit into tight spaces. Stackers do tend to have more limitations in both height and weight capacity, when compared to the forklift, however.

Fork Lift

Forklifts are where you see hydraulics begin to proliferate. Where a pallet jack has a single bottle jack, your forklift never runs with less than three hydraulic functions. What many people don’t realize is that a forklift that only allows for up and down motion would be a tremendous challenge. In order to make stacking pallets a little easier in the hard-to-see, hard-to-reach places, a forklift must also have a side-shift cylinder to move the lift laterally.

Bin Tipper

Bin tippers also use hydraulic cylinders to lift, tilt and dump the contents of bins using a fork truck. This means the hydraulics must be able to move the mast angle forward or backward to place pallets and remove them, as well as maintaining the center of gravity.

Hydrostatic Transmission

For those more fortunate, we can add another dimension to the forklift with a hydrostatic transmission. This provides both forward and reverse operation by tilting the control mechanism in one direction or the other. A pump powers the wheel motor in either direction in a smooth, controlled fashion. This is especially helpful when it comes to high capacity forklifts.

There are many more places you might find hydraulic power within your facility. When you take a moment to look around, I am sure you can place several. Hydraulic fluid power is the perfect partner in a material handling environment. Whether you are handling pallets or working with a custom manufactured product, every manufacturing, distribution and industrial environment can benefit from hydraulics. 

Keeping your equipment in working order is imperative for success in your industry. Yarbrough Industries so our expert technicians can get you up and going in no time.

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Metal fabrication is a small part of the metal manufacturing industry. There are many different types of manufacturing processes, including:

  • Forging
  • Smelting
  • Blacksmithing
  • Casting
  • Stamping
  • Painting
  • Roll Forming
  • Heat Treating
  • Structural Fabrication
  • Machining
  • Metal Fabrication

As you can imagine, the wide variety involved in metal manufacturing can be overwhelming. Metal fabrication, by itself, has many subcategories and niches that would be impossible to comprehensively list. Some different categories of metal fabrication you might encounter are heavy industrial plate metal, light industrial sheet metal, heavy structural steel, and light structural steel fabrication.  

Heavy Industrial Plate Metal Fabrication

This type of fabrication might include enormous plate steel, sometimes 1”-4” thick (even heavier) and fabrication processes like plasma cutting, rolling, welding, heat treating, and finishing. Finished products that involve heavy industrial plate metal fabrication might include mining equipment, pressure vessels, and tanks.

Light Industrial Sheet Metal Fabrication

This type could include smaller weighted metal-like materials ranging from 1/32” – 1/2” and fabrication processes like Laser Cutting, Brake Forming, Welding, Anodizing, and Painting. The products produced using this type of fabrication might be Computer Enclosures, Cases, and OEM Parts.

Heavy Structural Steel Fabrication

These fabrication processes are done with sawing cutting, plasma cutting, drilling, welding, sandblasting, and painting. This process deals with structural iron and beams that weigh several hundred pounds or more per foot. You can see the results of heavy structural steel fabrication, check out skyscrapers, large bridges and tunnel supports. 

Light Structural Steel Fabrication

This can include structural tube, angle and beams that weigh less than a hundred pounds per foot.  Fabrication processes would typically be similar to heavy structural steel processes, but the products created would be Small Buildings, Small Bridges, Platforms, and Supports.

Metal Fabrication Versus Machining

Metal fabrication is a term that typically refers to manufacturing that includes cutting, forming, rolling, sawing and welding metal. However, it is not to be confused with machining. There is a bit of crossover with the two, but machining usually includes more detailed work such as milling, lathing, routing, and polishing and is typically a part of the manufacturing industry. 

In addition, fabrication usually works with manufacturing tolerances at .010” – .030” whereas machining works with tolerances all the way down to .005” (and even smaller in many cases). 

Advancements in Metal Fabrication

Metal fabrication, like all manufacturing industries, has transformed over the years as technology has become more advanced. This began with the Computer Numerically Controlled, CNC, machines. These types of machines, combined with Computer Aided Drafting, CAD, revolutionized the metal fabrication industry.

Prior to the invention of CNC and CAD, hand layouts and calculator math were the tools used by craftsmen to layout and calculate fabricated parts. Machines had manual gauges that would be fine-tuned by hand as the technician moved stops, dialed back gauges and tweaked settings.

However, those days are long gone and programs are now generated automatically from CAD drawings and sent, via computer and code, directly to the various machines. Lasers can cut metal like butter, brake forming machines can tell you which order to sequence your bends and robotic welders can weld endless amounts of wire throughout the night. Metal fabrication is still an enormous part of everyday life and most of us see it, or use it, without even knowing as much. Light rail transit cars, automobiles, snowblowers, electrical panels, guardrails, signs, etc. Metal fabrication is everywhere!

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Yarbrough Industries offers a variety of machining processes to ensure success with various types of projects and help your company successfully create the workpiece you need. But what exactly is machining?

The term machining encompasses a broad range of technologies and techniques. A high-level definition might be removing material from a workpiece using power-driven machine tools to shape it into an intended design. Almost all metal components and parts require some form of machining during the manufacturing process. Other materials, such as plastics, rubbers, and paper goods, are also commonly fabricated through machining processes.

Machining Tools

Machining tools may be used alone or in conjunction with other tools. There are many types of tools that can be used for various manufacturing processes, and all are important to achieve the intended part geometry. You will typically hear the following terms when referring to different machining tools:

Boring tools – These tools enlarge holes previously cut into the material and are typically used as finishing equipment.

Cutting tools – Saws, shears and other sharp instruments are basic examples of cutting implements. These can be used to cut material with predetermined dimensions, such as sheet metal, into the desired shape.

Drilling tools – These are similar to boring tools, but they are used to create holes with two-edged rotating devices. The round holes typically run parallel to the axis of rotation.

Grinding tools – These instruments apply a rotating wheel to grind down rough edges and achieve a fine finish or make light cuts on a workpiece.

Milling tools – A milling tool employs a rotating cutting surface with several blades to create non-circular holes or cut unique designs out of the material.

Turning tools: Lathes are the most commonly recognized turning tool, but these tools can be anything that rotates a workpiece on its axis while a cutting tool shapes it to form.

Machining Technologies

There are two primary types of technology that are used to shape your workpiece. Burning machine technology uses heat, such as welding, while erosion machine technology uses water or electricity to erode material off the workpiece. You can find more in-depth information on types of cutting in this article.

The most common types of welding and burning technologies include laser cutting, oxy-fuel cutting and plasma cutting.

Laser cutting machines emit a narrow, high-energy beam of light that effectively melts, vaporizes, or burns material. CO2 and Nd: YAG lasers are the most common types used in machining. Laser cutting is a great choice for shaping steel or etching patterns into a piece of material. Its benefits include high-quality surface finishes and extreme cutting precision.

Oxy-fuel cutting is also known as gas cutting. This method employs a mixture of fuel gases and oxygen to melt and cut away material. Acetylene, gasoline, hydrogen, and propane are frequently used due to their high flammability. This method’s benefits include high portability, low dependence on primary power sources, and the ability to cut thick or hard materials, such as sturdy steel grades. It’s a great option for on-the-go machining.

Plasma cutting torches fire an electrical arc to transform inert gas into plasma. This plasma reaches extremely elevated temperatures and is applied to the workpiece at high speed to melt away unwanted material. The process is often used on electrically conductive metals that require a precise cut width and minimal prep time. 

Erosion machining tools differ from burning tools by doing exactly what it sounds like; they erode the workpiece to shape it, rather than melting the excess stock. The two main types of erosion technologies are water jet cutting and electric discharge machining (EDM).

Water jet cutting uses a high-pressurized stream of water to cut through the material. Sometimes abrasive powder is facilitating more efficient erosion. Water jet cutting is typically used on materials that can suffer damage or deformation from a heat-affected zone.

Electric discharge machining is also known as spark machining because it uses electric arcing discharges to create micro-craters that rapidly result in complete cuts. EDM is used in applications requiring complex geometrical shapes in hard materials and at close tolerances. EDM requires the base material to be electrically conductive, which limits its use to ferrous alloys.

CNC Machining

Computer numerical control machining (CNC machining) can be used in conjunction with a broad range of technologies and tools. It is a computer-aided technique that requires software and programming, usually in the G-code language, to guide a tool in shaping the workpiece according to preset parameters. As opposed to manually guided methods, CNC machining is an automated process. CNC machining has many benefits, including high production cycles, low manufacturing costs, and uniform production. Once a CNC machine has been properly coded, it usually needs minimal maintenance or downtime, allowing for a faster production rate. Due to its turnover speed and low manual labor requirements, CNC can be a cost-efficient process, particularly for high-volume production runs. CNC machining is typically precise and yields a high level of design consistency among its products.

Precision Machining

Precision machining is any machining process that requires unusually small cutting tolerances (between 0.013 mm and 0.0005 mm, as a rule of thumb) or surface finishes finer than 32T. Like CNC, precision machining can be applied to a wide number of fabrication methods and tools. Factors such as stiffness, damping, and geometric accuracy can influence the exactness of a precision tool’s cut. Motion control and the machine’s ability to respond at rapid feed rates are also important in precision machining applications.

If you are looking for a machining expert for your next project, be sure to look for someone who offers the full range of tools and technologies. Yarbrough Industries can help determine what you need for a successful outcome. 

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Many businesses use hydraulic systems in their day-to-day operations. Reducing downtime is critical, so repairing and replacing hydraulic hoses and fittings needs to be as efficient as possible. This can be challenging, especially when a hydraulic system has unusual metrics or non-standard hoses and fittings. A great resource for businesses is a hydraulic hose fitting technician service with mobile and custom solutions.

Common Hydraulic Hose and Fitting Problems:

Pressure and temperature variations make hydraulic systems susceptible to damage and failure. The SAE‘s commons reasons for this include things such as:

  • flexing the hose to less than the specified minimum bend radius
  • twisting, pulling, kinking, crushing, or abrading the hose
  • operating the hydraulic system above maximum or below minimum temperature
  • exposing the hose to rapid transient rises (surges) in pressure above the maximum operating pressure

It also stated that “intermixing hose, fittings, or assembly equipment not recommended as compatible by the manufacturer or not following the manufacturer’s instructions for fabricating hose assemblies” could cause damage or failure.

Whether your hose is damaged from wear, an accident, or misapplication, it’s a guarantee that your hydraulic hoses and fittings will need repair and replacement periodically. Obviously, repairs can turn into costly downtime for you if they aren’t done in the most efficient manner possible.

What to Look for in a Hydraulic Hose Fitting Technician Service

Whether you run a small or large operation, if you use hydraulic systems, you will need a hydraulic hose fitting technician service. Preventative maintenance and industry standards for application will let you prolong the life of hydraulic hoses and fittings. Eventually, however, you’ll need or want the help of an expert technician to fix hydraulic hoses, fittings, and quick couplers. When you encounter this, it’s important to have a technician that fits your needs in mind to be sure daily operations continue with as little downtime as possible.

Peak efficiency enhances productivity and makes things run smoothly. A quality hydraulic hose fitting technician service can help you accomplish these goals and maintain operational continuity when related problems occur.

Why Mobile Services?

When you are looking for a hydraulic hose fitting service, you can gauge effectiveness in large part by their mobile service capabilities. The more they can accomplish on-site the better, especially for businesses trying to reduce downtime due to hydraulic system repair.

Although many services offer 24/7 emergency repair, they often fail to repair or replace damaged hydraulic hoses and fittings on-site on the first visit. This may be because the mobile units don’t have expanded storage capabilities or custom fabrication capabilities. Whatever the reason, the result is costly downtime for businesses.

The key is finding a hydraulic hose fitting technician service that has expanded mobile storage and custom fabrication capabilities. Here at Yarbrough Industries, we offer both for residents of Springfield, MO and the surrounding region.

Wherever you are located, carefully consider who you hire as your hydraulic hose fitting technician service. If the service has mobile capabilities like Yarbrough Industries, you’ll benefit from expanded service capabilities and reduce costly hydraulic system downtime.

Fixing Hydraulic Hoses and Fittings Efficiently

You have to fix hydraulic hoses and fittings quickly and effectively in order to maintain continuity with business operations. Industries using hydraulic systems have different needs and expectations with their equipment. However, everyone shares a common objective of being productive and when hoses and fittings are fixed or replaced quickly and effectively, you will meet this objective.

A primary hindrance you’ll face is solving the complexities involved with repairing hoses and fittings. There are over 16 different hose types, three layers of construction (tube, reinforcement, cover), a multitude of fittings, and multiple manufacturers to choose from. Adding in SAE standards that aren’t enforced, unusual metrics, non-standard hoses and fittings, and various industry settings, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Solving these complexities is what businesses want their hydraulic hose fitting technician service to accomplish. It’s even better when it is a quick and effective service on the first visit using expanded mobile capabilities. For local businesses located in the southwest Missouri area, this means contacting Yarbrough Industries to repair, upgrade, and maintain all your hydraulic hose fitting needs

Get direct access to industry-leading content

This industry moves fast, but you can move even faster if you’re up to date on trends, technical developments, and best practices. The Yarbrough Industries blog is a go-to source for valuable, timely and detailed information. Sign up to ensure that you don’t miss a single post.