Manufacturing Process

We are industrious Germans – namely Swabians. We develop and make everything ourselves. Why? Because we have the necessary skills and knowledge to do it. But also because we find it reassuring to hold responsibility in our own hands. This is why we do everything in house for every order. We do it all ourselves: from acquiring and testing materials, to executing highly complex production processes, through to final inspection. This is the only way we can fulfil our guarantees for maximum quality, the highest degree of precision and the complete safety of our products. Keeping everything in house also makes us quick, flexible and continually reliable. Learn more about our productive German approach to value creation.

MATERIAL STORES

Materials are right at the start of the value chain: aerospace and space travel materials, to be exact. Take a look at our material stores – you’ll find everything you need there, in virtually every size. For example:

• Titanium alloys
• High and ultra high-strength hardened and tempered steels
• Corrosion-resistant and high-strength precipitation-hardening steels
• Highly heat-resistant nickel-based alloys
• Special materials such as ultra high-strength and tough steels
• Multi-phase nickel and cobalt-based alloys

FORGING

We aim for ultra high-quality, perfectly reproducible results, so we have perfected CNC-controlled inductive heating and forging for our blanks:

• Timing: The press is only activated after the proper heating time and once the high-precision optical pyrometer has determined the required temperature.

• Strength: The special grain flow of our head-to-shank contours ensures ideal mechanical properties.

HEAT TREATMENT

Not all heat treatments are created equal. Our different systems are each programmed to suit specific parts and materials. We also monitor and calibrate our furnaces in keeping with the most stringent aerospace travel requirements. The results are unparalleled:

• Continuity: We ensure the highest level of reproducibility for our heat treatment using air or protective gas.

• Properties: No deviations in terms of structure, mechanical properties, distortion or hardness.

MECHANICAL PROCESSING

Turning, milling and grinding comes after heat treatment. This stage involves enormous challenges. Only high-tech CNC systems can be used for ultra high-strength and highly heat-resistant materials with tensile strengths of up to 2100 MPa. The keys to our success:

• Process integration: Seamless transition from heat treatment to metal cutting.
• Expertise: Our qualified experts possess special expertise in materials and machining.
• Technology: High-performance CNC-controlled turning and milling, rolling and grinding machines.

THREAD ROLLING

From their fatigue strength to their dimensional accuracy, our rolled threads are a cut above the rest, thanks to their consistent grain flow. Our rolled threads boast ideal strain hardening – a crucial characteristic. Outstanding component properties guaranteed. We produce the following threads:

• Metric threads
• MJ threads
• Threads measured in inches

SURFACE TREATMENT

Increased resistance to wear, improved corrosion resistance and slip properties, or even visual appeal: Surface refinement serves all kinds of different purposes. We offer a correspondingly varied range of options. When it comes to uncommon treatments that we cannot provide ourselves, we work together with certified partners. Everything you receive has always been thoroughly inspected: By us. A few examples of processes we provide ourselves:

• Anodic titanium oxidization
• Covering components with wafer-thin, even, molybdenum or wolfram sulphide-based antifriction coating
• Passivating, nitriding, burnishing, phosphating, galvanizing, cadmium-plating and chromating of steels
• Silvering and anodic polishing for nickel alloys
• Anodising aluminium alloys

FINAL INSPECTION

We do not leave anything to chance. Before a product can be sent on its way to you, it needs to be thoroughly checked. This involves using many systems:

• Measuring and scanning test facilities
• CNC-controlled testing systems
• Conventional measuring equipment
• Optical methods

MATERIAL AND COMPONENT TESTING

We call it proven security. The materials and components we use are subjected to the strictest requirements. We can vouch for their quality, thanks to our meticulous destructive and non-destructive testing procedures. Our high-tech metallographic and materials laboratory is perfectly equipped for testing:

• Material inspection: Using spectral analysis devices to inspect chemical composition.
• Non-destructive testing: Through a magnetic powder method or fluorescent dye penetrant process
• Destructive testing: Using static and dynamic test machines as well as various different kinds of hardness testers to evaluate mechanical material and component properties.
• Structural assessment: Through harmonized metallographic semi-automatic preparation systems as well as the resulting evaluations and documentation with microscope and digital image data collection.