St. Paul, MN (November 23, 2020) — Traditional hand-scraping is a meticulously manual technique by extremely skilled and experienced craftsman. This process creates textured divots along finishing slide guide mating components which allows mating surfaces to smoothly glide against each other.
In an age of computer numerical controls and automated processes, hand scraping mated surfaces seems antiquated. With the extra time and effort required, many builders have abandoned the process. Few OEMs still stand by its value, maintaining that the craftsmanship required —and the benefits it provides—cannot be reproduced mechanically.
At Matsuura, our machines are built by our exceptionally skilled workforce, offering traditional craftsmanship including hand scraping to ensure tight tolerances, combined with state-of-the-art engineering principles and our total commitment to excellence in product design, innovation, and manufacturing.
Matsuura Masters of Hand Scraping impart their wisdom and techniques on young generations, passing on Matsuura’s commitment to producing a harmoniously balanced machine which will provide the best return on your investment.
Our machine tool engineers maintain hand scraping of mated surfaces on our high-speed and high-precision machine tools. Hand scraping contributes to accuracy and stability of the machine tool by facilitating level and better aligned surfaces.
Hand scraping delivers significantly less wear and tear, creating parts with superior surface finish – allowing your machine to last longer.
Most vertical machining centers have 25 crucial surfaces to be scraped, permitting the machine to be “fitted” together rather than “assembled” for increased structural rigidity.
Automated processes cannot consistently equal the geometric patterns of hand-scraping. In addition to requiring significantly more time to complete, mechanically scraped surfaces are prone to irregularities that lead to material distortion. There is no better method that is more ideally suited to reinforcing machine balance than hand-scraping.
Hand scraping is a practice that has lost its luster for many machine builders. Because of the associated costs in time and maintaining skilled labor, it is an art that has largely been abandoned.
However, Matsuura still uses the technique to introduce fine texture to surfaces that contact sliding components. Matsuura machine parts are hand scraped to attain a textured finish which is a traditional measure of craftsmanship.
“With automatic and computerized methods and the time and manual labor involved, hand scraping surfaces on a machine tool might seem old-fashioned. At Matsuura, hand scraping is integral to our production process as we are constantly focused and committed to total accuracy,” Matsuura’s Vice President of Sales, David Hudson explained.
“Matsuura machine tools are used to create other machines. Therefore, the accuracy of such machine tools affects the accuracy of all final products. This is exactly why we are committed to accuracy in microns in all production steps. The contact surfaces of parts are finely adjusted and finished with hand-scraping performed by experienced engineers. Though slight errors can be compensated for by the machine control system, such methods will eventually result in deterioration. Our machines are long-lasting because we are thoroughly committed to accuracy in all steps,” Hudson concluded.
Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc., located in St. Paul, MN is the U.S. subsidiary of Matsuura Machinery Corporation in Japan. Since 1935, Matsuura has been the forerunner in designing innovative technology and manufacturing solutions to a variety of industries around the globe. Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc. delivers unmatched excellence in 5-axis, vertical, horizontal, linear motor, multi-tasking CNC machine tools and machines with a powder bed metal AM platform with machining capability. Matsuura Machinery USA, Inc. provides the service, applications and technical field support that have always been the Matsuura standard for business.
For more information on Matsuura products, contact: [email protected].