Uploaded August 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A quick video showing how to use differential thermal expansion to your advantage for a tricky workholding problem. By exploiting the greater coefficient of thermal expansion of a plastic bushing we can use that quality to help hold the part for machining on a common gage pin. The bushing expands when heated in hot water and slips over a gage pin that is slightly larger than the cool inside diameter. For removal the smaller thermal mass and larger CTE of the plastic make it easy to reverse the process and remove the bushing from the gage pin.
A quick video showing how to use differential thermal expansion to your advantage for a tricky workholding problem. By exploiting the greater coefficient of thermal expansion of a plastic bushing we can use that quality to help hold the part for machining on a common gage pin. The bushing expands when heated in hot water and slips over a gage pin that is slightly larger than the cool inside diameter. For removal the smaller thermal mass and larger CTE of the plastic make it easy to reverse the process and remove the bushing from the gage pin.
