Blokland Metalbewerking B.V. has spent more than 50 years turning ferrous and non-ferrous sheet into high-quality semifinished parts from its facility in Hardinxveld-Giessendam, Netherlands. The company's capabilities span laser cutting, water jet cutting, stamping, edge bending, milling, turning, and assembly, and its production runs through roughly 55 tons of stainless steel sheet a month across two LISSMAC SBM-L 1500 deburring machines, one dedicated to carbon steel, the other to stainless.
The application
Running two machines split by material sounds simple until you look at what happens between jobs. On the standard LISSMAC setup, changing a deburring block means pulling four power bands and swapping blocks individually, a job that eats real time on a line running that much tonnage every month. Every minute spent on a tool change is a minute the machine is not cutting into that monthly volume.
What changed
Blokland moved to a quick-release clamping system built around pre-mounted base carrier blocks. Instead of pulling bands and reseating blocks by hand, operators click the deburring blocks in and out directly, a change that takes seconds instead of minutes. The blocks themselves come in a few grades depending on the job: a general-purpose edition for mixed sheet metal work, a stainless-specific edition, one built for aluminum and plastic, and a heavier-duty HERO option using finger-structure cloth lamellae for maximum material removal.
"The novel quick-release system enables us to change deburring blocks in minimal time, reducing setup times by almost 80 percent," says René Kruidhof, Blokland's facility manager.
Why it matters for a shop like Blokland's
The setup-time savings are the headline number, but they were not the only benefit. Blokland also needed fewer blocks in inventory overall, roughly 10% fewer tools to cover the same range of jobs, since the quick-release blocks are not sitting idle waiting for a full band change to be worth doing. The company also saw less band wear from the reduced handling, and cleaner, more consistent edge rounding on the finished sheet.
For a processor running two machines against a monthly tonnage target, that combination, faster changeovers, a smaller tool inventory, and more consistent edge quality, adds up to more machine time actually spent processing sheet instead of getting reconfigured for the next job.
Running a LISSMAC line? Our Deburring Block is configurable for LISSMAC across GREY, GREEN, BLUE, and other editions, including the HERO performance tier.
Source: Boeck GmbH. Machine photos courtesy of Russell Machine Tools.
