Precision Grinding Services
Whether your operation needs OD grinding, honing, superfinishing, or grooving, we provide precision grinding that can meet your most demanding requirements.
Precision Grinding Services by Elimold
Since its inception, Elimold has been a leading supplier of precision machine parts, tooling, stamping dies and specialty machines. Our grinding and conventional machining services are performed by experienced machinists with many years of industry experience. These precision services utilize equipment that can perform jig grinding and boring, vertical milling, drilling, honing and electrical discharge machining (EDM). These cutting-edge capabilities allow us to work with a variety of rubber and plastic materials, as well as a variety of metals, from commercial metals to exotic metals to heat-resistant alloys. These precision systems can produce parts up to 39 inches long and 20 inches wide with high-precision parallelism, flatness, perpendicularity, squareness, and provide a mirror-like surface finish.
We’re committed to customer service, so come tour our state-of-the-art facility – 24,000 square feet, AS 9100, Rev. D and ISO 9001:2015 certified. We can handle any production batch size from 1 to 1,0000 pieces and can deliver quickly, making our services ideal for the aerospace, biotechnology, electronics, medical, pharmaceutical and packaging industries.
Exceeding expectations in all areas of grinding
Whether it’s ID grinding, OD grinding, surface grinding, jig grinding, planetary grinding or CNC grinding, highly skilled machinists can achieve perfect results on one product or batches of hundreds. Capable of processing ferrous metals, stainless steel, non-ferrous metals and materials, or any type of coating or plating, Elimold will meet your project specifications and deliver the precise results you require. With an extraordinary range of equipment and a team with many years of experience providing professional precision grinding services, we can consistently deliver tight tolerances on all operations, no matter how complex the job.
In addition, Elimold can streamline development and production processes by managing the relevant steps of a part, including coating, plating, spraying and non-destructive testing. This is one of the reasons we are able to provide our customers with installation-ready, flight-critical components. Elimold can provide the same service to your industry, and with an AS9100D and ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management system, we can deliver on this promise.
What Is Precision Grinding?
Precision grinding is a finishing process used in manufacturing to remove small amounts of material from a workpiece. An abrasive grinding tool, usually a rotating wheel or belt, contacts the workpiece and facilitates material removal. Grinding is typically used as a finishing process and is a cost-effective and reliable way to obtain precise tolerances and beautiful surface finishes on a manufactured part. Precision grinding is often used to satisfy highly precise tolerances as low as +0.00025”. Additionally, the process is often used to obtain polished surface finishes on parts. Precision grinding can be used as a final finishing process or can be used to prepare parts for other finishing processes like honing, lapping, and superfinishing.
Precise dimensions and desirable surface finishes are made possible in precision grinding processes by the use of abrasives such as: aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, and diamond. The type of abrasive used depends on the workpiece material. For example, aluminum oxide abrasives are best for grinding steel and other ferrous metals, while silicon carbide abrasives are better for non-ferrous metals. While grinding can be completed manually using equipment like belt grinders and angle grinders, CNC automated grinding produces superior results in terms of efficiency and surface quality.
Grinding Capabilities
At Elimold, we pride ourselves on quality. Our precision grinding division is no different, especially when it comes to accuracy in measurement. We provide a wide array of products and services to Medical OEMs around the world, adhering to their specifications to manufacture quality components.
Sizing and Specs
- Minimum starting size: 0.006” OD
- Maximum starting size: 0.188” OD
- Most common centerless Sizes: 0.008” to 0.032” (0.20-0.80mm)
- Most common OD/profile sizes: 0.008” to 0.125” (0.20-3.20mm)
- Lengths of 10 feet and beyond
- Various materials (see materials list below)
- Diameter tolerances: ±0.0005″ regularly, down to ±0.0001″ depending on application
- Length tolerances: ±0.020″ regularly, down to ±0.005″ depending on application
- Machine control to 0.00001”
- Centerless, OD, and profile grinding
Elimold also offers a variety of wheel geometries and compositions, laser profilometer capability for measurement, and CNC wheel dress capability. We can automate certain applications for lights out operation.
Elimold can provide precision grinding services on complex profiles, forms, multiple tapers, narrow slots, angles, and pointed metal parts. Our precision surface grinding capabilities include the following:
- Centerless and OD metal grinding finished within ±0.000050
- Surface grinding finishes as low as 8 RMS with tolerances within ±0.0001
- Double disc grinding tolerances up to ±0.0002
- Creep feed grinding within ±0.0002” over extended cutting areas
- Blanchard grinding tolerances as low as ±0.003” for large parts and ±0.001 for small parts
Materials
Stainless Steel
- 302
- 304, 304V, 304L
- 316, 316L, 316LVM
Inquire about others
Nickel Titanium (NiTi, Nitinol)
- Superelastic
- Shape memory
Titanium
- Pure commercial grades 1-4
- Ti-6Al-4V ELI
Other
- Aluminum
- Tool steels
Inquire about others
Our precision grinding equipment
Machines: Farrel, Lobdell, Cincinnati
Specifications: 44” OD x 312” Face, 8” superfinisher,
4” Belt grinder
Software: Pro Mic
Measurement: P&J Gauge, Mitutoyo Surface Roughness Gauge
Precision Metal Grinding Service Options
At Elimold, we offer several metal grinding service options to meet your project needs, including:
OD Grinding
Outside diameter (OD) grinding is performed on the outside of a cylindrical workpiece that is rotated on a center axis. The grinding wheel and workpiece are rotated in opposite directions. OD grinding is a reliable means to return a cylindrical component to true concentricity. Our machines can grind as large as 44” outside diameter with tolerances of up to .0001″ and 4 Ra finish.
Honing
The honing process is generally only used where an extremely high level of precision and form accuracy is required. Industries that utilize honing include military, commercial, motorsports, aerospace, and medical. Honing can improve the surface texture of a workpiece, eliminating chatter marks and other imperfections.
Superfinishing
Unlike regular precision grinding, superfinishing is done at lower speeds and produces a mirror-like finish. Also known as micro honing, superfinishing creates high geometric correctness (roundness, flatness, straightness) with an accuracy of 2 to 4 microns. Superfinishing is applied after an initial finishing process and leaves an ultra-fine cross-hatch pattern on the surface of the metal.
Grooving
In some instances, adding grooves to a workpiece is required. These are usually cut with a hard substance like tungsten carbide. Grooving requires very tight tolerances. Some industries and applications that may utilize grooving are pumps and valves, hydraulics, and pulp and paper.
Precision grinding services for the medical field
We specialize in OD profile and centerless grinding, but we also provide additional services for products like guidewires, K-Wires, orthopedic pins, needle prototypes, ground hypotubes, mandrels, and additional medical related products.
Centerless Grinding
With centerless grinding the typical types of ground wires include core wires, mandrels and guidewires. The centerless grind taper allows surgical wires to have optimal levels of stiffness and flexibility throughout the length of the medical device. Elimold grinds long tapers, short tapers and steps to suit your medical device needs. We can create tapers at any angle and hold very tight tolerances across the profile.
Nitinol Grinding
Nitinol grinding is a manufacturing process that only a few medical companies can, or are willing, to do. This type of material is very abrasive which causes a large amount of heat during the grinding process, which then requires specialized wheels and coolant. Elimold has experience with nitinol and can help provide the best solution for your nitinol designs. We can manufacture core wires, mandrels, orthopedic wires, and many other parts from nitinol. Additionally, we have the ability to take a ground part and shape set the material into a more complex shape. Our vertical integration allows us to offer our customers a quick turnaround.
Core Wire Grinding
Elimold’s core wire grinding is unique in the ability to centerless grind long lengths of wires at very tight tolerances.
Custom Guidewire development, prototyping and assembly
Custom Grind Profiles, lengths & diameters
Paddles, Flattening & Stamping
Tapers of varying lengths and diameters for flexibility
Mandrel Grinding
We can manufacture custom mandrels for many applications such as wire coiling and catheter manufacturing. Mandrels can possess many different shapes from many different materials. Shapes such as flats, steps, tapers, radii, and angles. These shapes can be ground into the stainless steel or nitinol material, making grinding a very economical choice for mandrel manufacturing. Tight tolerance capability and smooth surface finishes make grinding a logical choice.
Hypotube Grinding
Hypotube grinding capability does not differ over solid wire grinding. Elimold has the ability to grind hypotubes to very tight tolerances and very thin wall thicknesses. These grind profiles can include steps, tapers, bevels, and lancet tips. We excel at prototyping small lots to high volume production.
Orthopedic Wires
With the ability to grind various geometries, our ability to manufacture orthopedic wires is unique. From K-wires (kirschner wires), Steinmann pins, or fixation devices, Elimold can help custom manufacture your medical component for you. Need threads on your nitinol wire? Need a ball in the middle of your wire? Need a laser marked depth bands? Contact us or learn more about how Elimold can help.
Industries we serve
We provide precision grinding for the following industries:
- Wind Turbines
- Hydropower
- Marine
- Food Processing
- Steel
- Plastics
- Pulp & Paper
- Packaging
- Non-woven
- Wood Products
- Rock Crushing
- Heavy Industries
Request Your Custom Grinding Quote Today
Precision grinding produces parts and products that meet exact design specifications to tight tolerances. At Elimold, we offer a wide range of industrial precision grinding services so that your company’s products match their designs to the last detail. Our expert grinders and technicians deliver high quality ground parts that meet or exceed your standards at a competitive price and on time.
For assistance with your next custom grinding project, request a quote today.