Aircraft interior design propels job shop

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 1998

One of the few job shops that machines interior design components, Jerry Fain Models Inc. (Bedford, TX), has worked on many one-of-a-kind projects for airplane manufacturers like Raytheon E-Systems, Sikorsky, K.C. Aviation, and Associated Air. Business professionals and international political figures usually own the aircraft. Working closely with interior designers, the 16-year-old company machines parts that often wind up plated with gold, platinum, and nickel or covered with semiprecious stones. These parts must have smooth surface finishes, because plating or inlaying magnifies any minor defect in the surface finish of the cut metal.

"We literally create flying palaces," says company owner Jerry Fain. "These jet interiors look like they came from the pages of a magazine-they may have gold-plated sconce lighting and mother-of-pearl inlayed light switches. We machine whatever the interior designer dreams up."

In addition to art pieces, trim, switch bezels, and lighting fixtures, Fain Models also machines bathroom fixtures. Often inlayed with malachite, tiger-eye, abalone or lapis lazuli, the parts frequently have curved edges and must be mirror images of bathroom sinks, faucets, and shower fixtures. "Many of the finished interior design components we produce look like jewelry," Fain says. "Even with the use of high-end CAD programs, these sculptured parts are very difficult to machine."

Fain started his company in 1983 to fabricate prototype housing and consumer products for engineers and industrial designers. Seven years ago, Fain Models gave up more than 200 faithful customers to become part of a team that modifies business and personal jets. The company, which has 190 employees, has maintained a 15-year relationship with Hurco, and operates nine Hurco knee mills and four Hurco machining centers in its 30,000 ftz job shop. Fain Models uses Hurco Machine Tool Products' Ultimax control with UltiPro software to obtain smooth finishes on parts.

Hurco's new generation of Pentium-based Ultimax controls prevents data starvation, a problem common to running 3-D surfaces generated on CAD systems. Data starvation occurs when information cannot flow to the tool rapidly enough for it to cut a part smoothly and continuously.

New Hurco software processes large NC files in a different fashion than the company's older packages. The new 400-block lookahead algorithms are coupled with advanced DSP (Digital Signal Processing) servocontrollers. These controllers permit Hurco's Ultimax with UltiPro to execute 27 characters per block at a processing speed of 1000 blocks per second without data starvation, resulting in a dramatic increase in contouring feed rates. Fain Models reports increases of five and tenfold over previous capabilities without loss of accuracy. The number-crunching power of Pentium lets Ultimax continuously recalculate the 400 block lookahead values for feed rate and acceleration.

Allowing programming on the shop floor in a question and answer format, the Ultimax control uses multiple choice and fillin-the-blank questions. No codes or computer languages are used. The program asks a series of questions and assembles the machining program from the operator's answers. Ultimax permits an operator to cut one part while programming another.

For distributed I/O control, Ultimax with UltiPro has a 32-bit Pentium main CPU and five microcontrollers. The dual 40-MHz DSP servocontrollers feature feed-forward velocity and acceleration control. Provided with 8 MB of RAM (expandable to 40 MB), the standard main CPU has a large-capacity hard drive that allows machinists to load big, complex part files.

"Without Ultimax controls, cutting can be as slow as 40 ipm [1.0 m/min]," says Mike Berdan, Fain Models CAD/CAM manager. "The new Hurco control speeds cutting to 200 ipm [5.1 m/min]. And we keep the accuracy that's so important to our customers."

In addition to machining interior design components, Fain Models still produces prototype parts for consumer products. The company helps corporations develop products such as watches, computers, cellular and wire telephones, advertising props, weapons systems, and medical equipment.

"We also produce one-of-a-kind trophies and models," Fain says. "We recently used a Hurco machine to cut a model of a mosque that was plated with gold and silver and inlayed with lapis as a gift for the Queen of England. We're always looking for challenging projects." For more information on Hurco equipment Circle 371.