The Advantages of Hand Scraping

On my recent trip to Taiwan, almost every one of the machine tool builders we visited made a point to demonstrate to us that they still highly value the art of hand scraping. I realize that the title of my section here in Inbox Insights is “Emerging Technology,” and this traditional hand scraping process is far from what most people would consider “emerging.” But I felt the subject was worthy of a quick review.

Taiwanese manufacturers are not the only ones who feel hand scraping provides an advantage. Other builders around the world continue to apply this process to deliver the necessary geometrical precision of mated surfaces to maintain machining accuracy. At Okuma, for instance, hand scraping is performed on each mating surface of every machine the company builds. This involves six or more of the machines’ components, including the machine base, gibs, cross slide, saddle, headstock, and tailstock.

Check out Okuma’s website for some detail about the benefits of the process, including providing ideal flatness to eliminate rocking, developing proper oil pockets to hold oil on mated surfaces and achieving tight tolerances to align components within a millionth of an inch.

For more information about my visit to Taiwan, see my upcoming column, “It’s Hot, but Cool,” from our September issue, along with a special report, “Manufacturing Continues to Advance in Taiwan,” in that same issue.