Recently a company based out of Ohio gave one of these small machines a tough new assignment beveling of titanium plate.
The firm fabricates ASME Code vessels of titanium, zirconium and tantalium. Most of the vessels go to petroleum processing plants.
In the past the heavy section titanium plate would be sent to an outside vendor where an open side plaining machine would bevel the plate edges. The company would also take part in some in house flame cutting where operators would flame cut thick sections.
This operation left a heat affected zone and grinders had to remove heat-affected metal. Plate farmed out for beveling added cost of handling, shipping and purchased machine time.
When the company put the KBM-18 to the test on the heavy titanium the high speed portable plate edge beveler proved its worth. The beveler immediately got to work and has earned steady duty there at the factory.
It machines clean cuts in titanium, taking over work formerly done by flame cutting, outside machining and nibbling in sections. The biggest benefit other then the greatly reduced production cost is that KBM bevellers eliminate heat distortion which results in a more quality weld.
