Beware of expedited spindle repair

Every manufacturer looks for ways to add value for customers and derive value from suppliers. With machine tool spindle repair, end users can gain value by receiving a complete, comprehensive repair that is done quickly and economically.

Spindles are the heart and soul of machine tools and the most precise, heavily stressed components of a machine. Special care therefore must be taken to ensure that spindles are designed and built to provide the required accuracy and longevity. When a spindle degrades, a machine tool either does not hold specified tolerances or does not produce parts at all. In any case, it costs money.

When a spindle goes down, it is natural to want a machine back up and running as soon as possible. Having a spindle down in the middle of a job with a tight delivery is not a good feeling. However, although you need a spindle repaired quickly, it must be repaired correctly. A fast but substandard repair is not much consolation if part tolerances do not hold or a spindle quickly fails again.

Final runoff is performed on a test stand for a high-speed Kessler spindle. Image courtesy of Advanced Spindle Technology

Trust, but Verify

So how do you know that a spindle will be repaired as quickly as possible without cutting corners or taking shortcuts regarding the quality and completeness of a repair? The answer is transparency. A spindle repair company should provide proper documentation so customers know they are deriving value from spindle repairs.

In most machine tool spindles, there are 250 to 300 individual component and assembly characteristics that impact performance and longevity. For a comprehensive repair, each of these must be checked and evaluated for suitability. Since many tolerance measurements are in microns, components should be absolutely clean and at the proper temperature to accurately inspect them. To accomplish this, a 24-hour turnaround for a proper spindle rebuild is hardly sufficient. It can take that long for individual components to reach the proper temperature for inspection. A basic expedited repair should take three days from receipt of a spindle to shipping it back to a customer.