In the early 1980s, a domestic steel producer was having longevity issues with their pinch and wrapper rolls. They were looking for a solution to improve the performance by finding a domestic source for roll refurbishment. For privacy reasons, the steel producer will be referred to as The Company.
Kocsis Machine was contracted by a caster segment repair facility to manufacture new split water-cooled bearing housings for a steel mill end customer. These bearing housings were to be used for drive rolls in the caster.
The repair facility needed to find a new source to manufacture these housings because the original sources were limited. The housings were quite difficult to manufacture because the internals were very intricate, and each half of the housings had different footprints. There were very few machine shops in the area that could machine these unique features while maintaining the very close tolerances needed to fit the bearings. The repair facility chose Kocsis to provide a solution.
The turning operations for these bearing housings were completed on our Toshiba VTLs, and the milling operations were done on our Mazak 8800 horizontals. After machining, the upper and lower housings were assembled and finished machined as a complete assembly. Finally, we added seals and pressure tested the complete assemblies to check for leaks.
These split bearing housings showcased Kocsis Machine’s extensive engineering and manufacturing capabilities. The project involved all aspects of our team including design engineers, manufacturing engineers, machinists, and millwrights. In the end, we were able to solve a sourcing problem for our customer and deliver a viable solution.
MATERIALS
A36 plate for housings and 1045 carbon steel for lab rings
DIMENSIONS
14.5” tall x 12.25” wide x 8.6” thick