Production Broaching

[Larry$]

I was recently in a machine shop/ plant, where I saw a, new to me, machine. It was a horizontal broaching machine. Looked relatively old. But what was striking, to me (who has only used broaches that are less than a foot long) this machine used broaches that were about 30" long. The obvious advantage being a complete keyway in one stroke. As it was set up, a 5/16 keyway, in steel. The broach was only guided by the bushing at the workpiece! The chips were pretty thick, meaning a lot of pressure. It was pushing, not pulling the broach! I would have never thought that could work, long skinny broach!

This was in a shop where there were a lot of manual lathes and mills along with about a dozen Mori Seiki CNC machines & a big, pallet change CNC.

And one more interesting machine: Pre WW1?? fully automatic, feeding from a coil of 1/4" plastic rod. Drilling a 1/16" hole about 3/4" deep and then cutting off at about 1". I love going through manufacturing plants!

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Sounds like a cool place to see.

One of the neatest places I toured during my apprenticeship was the Demag-Delaval/Semens plant in Trenton NJ.

They made steam turbines for industrial applications, nuclear subs and nuke power plants.

Some of the government work (personal projects) rivaled what many good machinists/toolmakers would make for the company in most places.


As to pushing a broach, it’s not hard at all if you understand the process and have a rigid accurate way to push it.

Some of the things I’ve seen people doing on YT just set my teeth on edge.