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windmills. Now in its 41st year, Harbec performs primarily injection molding, CNC machining, mold building and 3D printing of metal and nonmetal parts. Adding to its forward thinking, the com- pany has adopted a new automated part- finishing concept, which promises quicker and higher-quality post-processing of 3D- printed metal parts.
3D-Printing Veteran
Harbec entered the additive-manufac- turing (AM) arena about 25 years ago, according to Keith Schneider, its general manager, bringing in a machine for pro- totyping to supports its plastics division.
“Back then,” he recalls, “when making a production tool for injection molding, CNC machining was the only way to pro- duce prototypes before building the tool- ing, an expensive and time-consuming process. Bob (Bechtold) sought an alter- native, and 3D printing of prototypes was the alternative.”
Today, Harbec 3D prints a variety of material, using two EOS machines for metal alloys, and Stratasys and 3D Systems units for plastics, along with some smaller desktop printers. Delivered to Harbec in 2005, a metal-part-producing EOS M 270, recalls Schneider, was one of the first such machines installed in the United States.
“We didn’t know how to use it,” he laughs. That recollection matches with other early adopters of the technology, back when reference material and user experiences to draw on were in short sup- ply. “We had to dig in and for the most part learn on our own how the machine (using selective-laser-sintering technology) really worked and how to process materi- als. Even today, 3D printing is as much an art as a science—building layouts, editing parameters and getting the properties that we want. While base parameters that work for most applications are available, figuring out the rest is the secret sauce.”
On the metal-AM side, Harbec pro- duces tooling inserts to support its injec- tion-molding operations, as well as parts for outside customers across a number of markets.
“Defense and aerospace have really
taken off for us,” Schneider says. “We per- form some volume production, meaning 200 to 300 parts per year, for aerospace. That production level fits metal-printing machines very well.”
Finishing Inefficiencies Addressed
Finishing operations can represent a huge bottleneck in the 3D-printing process when creating parts, especially metal parts. Unfortunately, the term 3D
printing has fostered the idea that the process is as easy as using an ink printer: Simply “print” a part and off you go. As we have come to know, there’s so much more to producing parts via AM, and much of that involves the meticulous fin- ishing process. Adopting the latest finish- ing technology is a no-brainer for Harbec, which also rides the leading edge on so many other processes and technologies.
“The biggest misconception in additive
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