Industrial Engineering
by George E Brooks
Automatic Elliptical Carving Knife Handle Profiling Machine
Rotating elliptical knife handle patterns, thrust spindle.
Front view of carver with vertical spindle supply empty. Blanks producing three handles each stack vertically across opening.
Profiled handle turnings exit under main infeed table.
Back side of knife handle profiler.
View through back to patterns.
Underside front of knife handle profiler.
Curvilinear Space Divider Production System
Foam Profiling System - Reduced 2 hour hand opertion to 1.5 minutes
Outfeed from fabric to foam bonding laminator
Fabric to foam bonding laminator infeed w/autospray system
Engineered Wood in Machinery
Adhesive Transfer Unit travelling into pull tab laminating machine. Interior of ATU fiberglassed and operates filled with heated liquid adhesive. Engineered wood construction is light weight, excellent vibration damping, rust proof.
Space divider fabric to foam laminating machine, unfinished. Cost of engineered wood machine was one fifth the estimates received for the alternative made of steel.
Drumlight Production Engineering
Programmable dual needle sewing machine outfitted with feed mechanism for vinyl and the light strips. Automatically back-tacks both ends, sews length. Elapsed time: 3 seconds.
DrumLights respond to percussion from very light to everything else. Light display chases in colors, end to middle and back and dozens of other patterns in extremely bright Red, Green, Blue, White LEDs.
DrumLight Vinyl slitting machine in process of coming to life Top vinyl strip (1 5/8"w winds on blue reels) is wider to arch over LEDs on light strip. Narrower bottom strip (winds on white reels).
Retracting cutting mandrel R utilizes rotary razor knife blades.
Vinyl slitting machine pictured above and below was engineered in 24' motorhome trailer.
See Engineering on Wheels this website.
Pull Tab Laminating Machine Automation
Below Left
Back side of control console. Electronic calendar is programmed with annual shift schedules including holidays, etc., then turns machine on in time to bring all components up to operating temperature for the days run prior to operators arrival at the beginning of the shift. Operator loads machine with pre-printed 24" x 32" pull tab parent sheets, pushes RUN and the machine does the rest automatically including auto-washing the adhesive mat at end of the run.
System returns to standby mode at shift end, has own telephone line and digital voice for dialing on-call maintenance engineers to report problems like power outages, water on the floor, loud noise, etc. Monitors on console (above) show close up views of critical functions of the system.
Beginning phase of electronic circuitry circa 1980's. Eventual on delay, off delay, timers, repeat relay, etc. count was 238.
Adhesive Transfer Unit (ATU) filled with heated liquid adhesive. Humidity/Dust cover partially retracted, adhesive cylinder exposed.
Operator platform Left, center. Acrylic personal protective shields removed. ATU in out position. Adhesive temperature control system and supply tank Right.
