Custom Tool Made to Apply Tape Disks
A customer asked us to look at a part they needed to mask more quickly. The problem was not with our masking, but rather the configuration of the metal piece to be masked. Circular in shape, and with a raised section that needed masking not only over it but around the sides, the customer was spending hours and hours masking them by hand.
We looked at several options, when the customer asked if a tool that would press our standard tape disks down over the part would work. Our design engineer was present at the meeting, and offered to make a prototype tool on his home metal lathe that afternoon.
After a few measurements and determining if a sufficiently large piece of aluminum was on hand, Viadon's design engineer (an amateur machinist!) turned the piece of aluminum and test fit it on the customer's metal part. It worked!
The tool pressed the die cuts over the top of the raised circular area and evenly adhered the excess disk circumference past the edge and onto the parts lower surface.