Case Study: Burnishing a Gearbox Drive Shaft

Summary Of Results

THE CHALLENGE

A customer of ours was manufacturing gearbox drive shafts using a Mori Seiki CNC Lathe. The shafts required a surface finish of 16 Ra microinch (0.4 Ra) or better on the central diameter and the fillet radii of the driveshaft.
Previously the manufacturer transferred the drive shafts to another machine to grind down excess material and achieve the required surface finish which was quite time consuming. Here was their pre-burnishing process:

OUR SOLUTION

Our team suggested that they use a Single Roll OD “Top Hat” Burnishing Tool with a 0.125” (3.175mm) radius carbide roll made by Elliott Tool Technologies. Here were the statistics of the burnishing operation:
OD Profile burnishing tool after burnishing a shaft

FINAL RESULTS

The single roll burnishing tool produced a surface finish of 12-14 Ra microinch (0.30-0.35 Ra), all while allowing the part to be finished on one machine. This saved 30 minutes per part and freed up the grinding machine for other operations, which resulted in huge financial savings.