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(drill whirring)
Hi, I'm Ross Adams
and I'm an application
engineer at Markforged.
My previous position was a tool designer
at an Aerospace and Defense company.
We're doing a video today to
do an application spotlight
on a particular application
that has a strong niche
inside the aerospace and defense industry.
This particular application
is a drill plate.
Drill plates go by a lot of
different names throughout
the industry, they could be drill guides,
drill jigs, drill templates.
What they're used for is to repeatedly
drill a hole pattern onto a component.
Just like any other type of tool,
it makes a cumbersome
operation much simpler.
So where are drill plates used?
Well, they're used on operations that
the drill needs to be done
by hand or on the bench.
So instances where the part is too large
for a CNC machine or perhaps
it's part of an assembly
that you can't bring to the machine,
or it could be a composite
lay up where inherently
through the manufacturing process
you'd need to do post
processing to achieve
a hole pattern that
mounts into the component.
What are drill plates used for?
Well they're used to drill
the locations of holes
for things such as socket head cap screws,
hi-locks, rivets, dowel pins,
any type of fastener or locator
that goes onto an aircraft.
And these fasteners are used to assemble
components such as brackets,
clips, hydraulic lines,
duct work, fairings, door handles,
all sorts of different components
that go onto aircrafts.
Now why would you 3D print
a drill plate verses machine one?
Well a lot of the times it makes sense
to machine drill plates.
These are instances where the geometry
is going to be orthogonal,
and uniform hole patterns.
So this is much simpler
for a machining operation.
But in aerospace, often
times we're dealing with
contoured components to
reduce aerodynamic drag.
And this is gonna be much more complex
for machining operations.
So Markforged offers a unique
solution for 3D printing
where we have composite
and metal 3D printers,
and you can really
leverage these to increase
your velocity of the tool design.
Continuous carbon fiber
reinforcement really makes the
tool operation much more durable,
'cause we know that when
these tools get used down
on the shop floor, they're
not gonna be gentle with them.
With continuous fiber
we can get the strength
of aluminum, but the
light  weight of plastic.
As well as non-marring features,
so when we lay it up against the part,
we're not gonna scratch it.
And it's just gonna withstand
and be much more durable
than plastic tooling with
other FDM style 3D printing.
The application that we'll
be spotlighting today
is locating this bracket onto
this six inch aluminum tubing.
Now this bracket requires
two socket head cap screws
which are a 1/4-20 thread.
So we're gonna need a tool
that drills the pilot hole
and then taps it at 1/4-20.
So the way the tool works is quite simple,
we take the tool and we
locate it onto the tubing.
Then we're gonna take a clamp and
make sure that that stays locked in.
After that, we're gonna take
our first bushing spoon,
and insert it into this liner bushing,
and drill our pilot hole
at .210 inch diameter.
After we remove that, we'll
take the second bushing spoon
which has a 1/4 inch ID,
and we'll use this as our tap guide
when we go in to tap it with 1/4-20.
After that we'll move
on to the second hole,
and then our operation is complete,
and we can locate this bracket
precisely onto the tubing.
Now we are going to procure
the tools for this operation.
We will begin by printing the drill plate.
Before we are able to print this tool,
we need to prepare it in our
slicing software called Eiger.
You can take a CAD model in STL format,
determine the orientation
and material selection,
then view the internal tool paths,
and selectively reinforce layers
with continuous carbon fiber.
Then we can select a printer
and seamlessly start the print.
After I receive a notification
that my print is finished,
I can walk over to the printer
and easily remove it off of the print bed.
Then we need to do some
light post-processing steps
to prepare the tool to be
used on the shop floor.
First we are going to remove
the tearaway supports,
which can easily be done
with a set of hand pliers.
Then we are going to use a contrast filler
to make the text more
distinct from the part,
for tool number identification
and operating instructions.
And finally, we will heat press
in serrated drill bushings
into the tool using a soldering iron.
While the drill plate is printing,
our procurement department
gave us a heads up
that the renewable drill bushing
is made to order and has
a three week lead time.
Instead, we are going to
utilize the Markforged
Metal X 3D printer and print
the bushing in D2 tool steel.
This is only a two hour print,
so we can get it into the
debinding station overnight,
and then into a Sinter-2
furnace the next day.
After the bushing is sintered,
we will do a quick touch up and open up
the ID to a tighter tolerance.
This three day lead time
is much more attractive
than waiting three
weeks from the supplier.
Once we have all the details for the tool,
we can assemble it together and do
a tool tryout on the shop floor.
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