What a $1,700.00 Teflon Sheet looks like.

[wrustle]

Just as the title states, this sheet of 

"Chemical-Resistant PTFE Gasket Material, Soft Expanded Value Seal"

tips the monetary scale at just under $1,700.00!!




The sheet in the picture is .125" thick x 60" x 60".




We lay out the sheet and cut it up into 63pcs roughly 6.5" x 7.75".  (can you say, "measure THREE times, and cut once?")



The pieces are then loaded onto a fixture in one of our Haas machining centers.



The fixture being a special design to hold the gasket in place with minimal distortion takes the operator about 90 seconds to load, machine, remove, and load the next piece.




Once the gasket is located in the fixture, a holding plate is placed on top to completely secure the gasket from lifting when being drilled. 






Here's a picture of two of the finished drilled pieces.



With the material being so EXTREMELY soft, removing the tabs left by the drill drilling through must be done by hand.  The white glove is worn to prevent leaving dirty or oily smudges on the parts while being handled.






Once the pieces are cut, machined and deburred, they are packed in individual sealed bags and shipped off to our forensic test equipment customer.




From start to finish it's approx. 3 hours to make the 63 pieces the one sheet yields.  

Best Regards,
Russ
  

[EdK]

     

Ed

[Mayhem]

I'll take two sheets thanks!

I'm surprised you manage to keep it clean prior to the deburring stage. I would have made a mess of it prior to even getting the top cover on the holding fixture.

[f350ca]

It would have been filthy entering the door of my shop.

[arvidj]

Wow. I've paid less for whole cars ... though the cars were not nearly as clean.

[TomG]

It must have come from McMaster Carr.

If you have a lot of those to make, you may want to invest in a clicker press and have a steel rule die made. Your time per part would be reduced to seconds rather than minutes. Tippman makes good presses and I get my dies form Ace or Midwest steel rule dies.

Tom

[wrustle]

(12-31-2014, 09:10 AM)TomG Wrote: It must have come from McMaster Carr.

If you have a lot of those to make, you may want to invest in a clicker press and have a steel rule die made. Your time per part would be reduced to seconds rather than minutes. Tippman makes good presses and I get my dies form Ace or Midwest steel rule dies.

Tom

Good call Tom, it does come from McMaster Carr, but that is the part number provided on the drawing for the material by the engineer.

The press would be a great idea, however we only make these parts once every three years so the cost would not be worth the return.

Our margins on it are still very good however so it's not a hater once it comes in the door like some other jobs!  

More of a pain in the neck keeping it clean!

Best Regards, 
Russ

[the penguin]

I got from the food plant, I have boilers in

(4) - 27" x 16" x 1" solid food grade Teflon pieces, I'm not sure what I will use them for, but I got them

[PixMan]

So that's what you had texted me about the other day, eh?

Quite an expensive piece of material. I gotta wonder if it would be possible to get certs for the material from McMaster Carr and compare with a local source such as Plastics Unlimited or Tri-Star Plastics. Chances are high that certs would be identical but pricing a LOT lower, giving you even better margin on the job.

Nice work though. Like any other job, once you work out the bugs it's money.

[stevec]

Ken, Surely you're not suggesting that Russ substitute a material specified by the customer!

Steve