Eberhardt GmbH is a family-run, 65-employee manufacturer in Lichtenau, Germany, building stainless steel equipment for the meat processing industry: ham presses, smoking wagons, shelving, and hygiene systems that ship to more than 100 countries. For its 40th anniversary, the company opened a fourth production facility and brought in modern CNC equipment, including a WEBER PT 1350 universal grinding machine.
The application
Most of what Eberhardt builds is either V2A stainless (grade 1.4301, roughly equivalent to US 304) or the higher-spec V4A grades (1.4401 or 1.4571, comparable to 316). Both are common choices for food-contact equipment, but the material alone does not get a part to hygiene standard. Every edge has to be rounded aggressively enough that it will not harbor bacteria or catch on cleaning equipment, and that used to mean hand deburring, part by part, before a component could move on to assembly.
What changed
Eberhardt now runs HERO deburring tools on its grinding line, along with Quick-Release Professional tools for lighter jobs and abrasive belts for the initial burr removal pass. "Previously, we had to deburr and round edges through time-consuming manual labor," says manufacturing supervisor Kevin Eberhardt. "With HERO tools, we achieve extreme edge rounding in the shortest time, saving up to 80 percent of process time."
That is not a small efficiency gain on a shop processing about 1,650 tons of stainless steel a year. The time saved was enough that four employees who had been dedicated to manual deburring were reassigned elsewhere in the business.
Why it matters for a shop like Eberhardt's
Hygiene equipment manufacturing does not have much tolerance for shortcuts on edge quality, so the choice was never between fast and food-grade. Eberhardt needed both at once, on two different stainless grades, at a volume that made hand deburring a real drag on throughput. HERO tools come in a few grades depending on the job, a general-purpose edition for standard sheet work, a more aggressive edition for stronger edge rounding, and one tuned for aluminum and plastic with a glossy finish, so the line is not stuck with one abrasive profile across every material that comes through.
For a company that ships to over 100 countries and just opened a new facility to keep up with demand, moving edge rounding off the workbench and onto the grinding line freed up headcount without asking the shop to compromise on the standard its products have to meet.
Running a Weber grinding line? Our Deburring Brush Disc offers the same Standard, Professional, HERO, and Diamond stages, and our Deburring Wheel and Abrasive Cloth Belt are both configurable for Weber.
Source: Boeck GmbH.
