2017cnc10-11

CNC WEST October/November 2017 www.CNC-West.com 27 less to say, Chick really came through for us.” That set-in motion a plan to rethink of all their machines and how they were holding parts. With 13 CNC machining centers in 5800 sq.ft . Scott had the arduous task of assessing which ma- chines could benefit the most by a workholding upgrade and started there. “We couldn’t do every machine at once,” tells Scott. “We have made huge strides over the past few years and still have a couple systems left to complete.” To date Scott has added: 2-1040 Chick MultiLOK systems, 2 Chick OneLOK systems, 2-1550 MultiLOK systems, 8 QwikLOK sys- tems and multiple Chick sub-plate Foundations. “If I need something quickly chances are Brian Harrigan at Chick has it in stock and gets it to me within a day or two. The support fromBrian and ChickWorkhold- ing has been just as good after the sale as it was before I purchased their products. We learned tooling tricks that were a revelation for us. Maybe they were not to the rest of the world, but for us they were and that’s what matters. The ease of use, and the repeatability are only two aspects why we love their products. It is amazing how we went so long without them. I will never go back to old school steel vices again.” 2018 is right around the corner and already AMI is looking forward to continued growth. Their Harley parts customer has been so impressed with the added production capabilities that AMI was just awarded a new family of parts to manufacture. It is a chain tensioner system that attaches to the cam plates. Manufacturing times were slow on their old vertical machine so without hesitation Scott made another call to Gosiger and to Chick Workholding Solutions. “I bought a Hardinge Bridgeport V480 twin vertical pallet machining center,” explains Scott. “It is a re- ally powerful machine in a compact size. It has only been on our floor for a couple months. The first thing we did when it got here was get Chick out to setup a work holding solution.” They added a Chick Founda- tion sub-plate and six QwikLOKs allowing Scott the versatility needed to run a variety of setups. “We went from one part at a time to three,” tells Scott. “Time per part dropped from 8 minutes down to only 3.” “Over the years we did great work with what we had,” concludes Scott. “Now we do even better work and a lot more of it. I’m a little embarrassed that it took so long to get to this point, but I’m glad we did. I look forward to the future and what Arrow Machine Industries Inc. adds to American manufacturing. We’ve come a long way since that airport hanger. I’m proud of my employees and proud of what we pro- duce. I’m eternally grateful to Grandpa Harold for his support and encouragement over the years. Chris- tine, my wonderful wife of 22 years saw something in me that I didn’t yet see and we came on this journey together.” Compared to a tombstone the Chick MultiLOK system gives Scott flexibility. He can easily change from dual station clamping, to single station, or Faceplates for quick change fixtures.