| Case Studies |
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 Ricci In Space - read
full story
D.L. Ricci has answered the call in many facilities around the World. This was our first call for something other Worldly. The Kennedy Space Center was working on their Giant Crawlers that haul the Space Shuttle to launch pad and back to hanger. One of the Crawler's 7 foot tracks needed repair of one of its' bearing housings and after repair D.L. Ricci was called in to machine the surface back to very tight tolerances. Tony, Ralph and our 4" Push-Pull Bore Bar did the job so well they earned a perfect score from the customer. |
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Big Time Milling- read
full story
One of our biggest Milling Machines, the 16" x 96", can cover a lot of turf and that saves time and money by minimizing the number of set-ups required for large milling jobs. A 32" x 42" press bed for a Massachusetts furnace fabricator had dipped after years of use. This 450 ton press was 15 to 20 thousandths out of flatness and D.L. Ricci Field Staff Josh and Tony were called in with one of our biggest mills to make it flat. The big mill took only two set-ups to completely flatten the press bed (to within .003"). Limiting mill overlap also led to a minimal amount of sanding to finish the job. |
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Clamshell Persistence - read
full story
"Clamshell Persistence" is a case study about never giving up on the sale. Our Australian Rep. Park worked on this customer for 5 years until the right situation came up and he finally agreed to give our clamshells a try. The result was successful as Park is now back there again doing very similar pipe cutting and beveling work. |
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Flexible Work Scope- read
full story
An Upper Midwest Fossil Plant needed some surfaces re-faced on a Boiler Feed Pump and called D.L. Ricci for the job. 4 Ricci Staff and our 4" Portable Boring Bar made the trip. The scope of the job expanded when the pump barrel was exposed, leading to twice the machining that we originally thought we were going to do. |
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Overseas Training - read
full story
Our reputation worldwide is growing and this past fall we completed a training and machining job in India. The largest refinery in India agreed to purchase various MS Clamshells for an upcoming turnaround. As part of that purchase a separate training contract was arranged and a Ricci Tech went to India for 5 weeks of on-site training on the clamshells. The training ended up getting expanded to include oversight of the cutting operations during the outage. |
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MM180 Is Big - read
full story
Highlighting our expertise in custom engineering, this case
study details our efforts to build the World's largest gear
driven clamshell lathe. Designed for a severing and beveling
application at an upper midwest nuclear power plant, the MM180
was completed ahead of an aggressive schedule and machined flawlessly. |
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Boring Down Under - read
full story
Our Australian Rep., Mr. Park Johnstead, recently pointed out
the lack of good hard technical data in our Case Studies. He
then proceeded to record all the data he could about a portable
boring bar job his company performed at an Australian Rock Crushing
factory. Here is the story complete with more technical data. |
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Customized Heat Treating - read
full story
Occasionally our Heat Treating work gets as complicated as our
field machining work. This particular job involved engineering
support in the creation of (patent pending) new methods to hold
heating pads in place. The new technology plus a variety of
restrictions on size and weight of equipment made this heat
treat job anything but normal. |
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Machining At Home - read
full story
Most of our field machining work happens at somebody else's site
but for this job it was better for the customer and for D.L.
Ricci if the machining took place in our shop. Our customer
was doing some fabrication work on giant arm sprayers. They
needed our Axial Feed and Portable Mill to some machining at
two spots on the arms. It was more economical for them to bring
the arms to us and do the machining here. |
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The Perfect Score - read
full story
Our customers get evaluation forms immediately after our crews
leave an on-site job. Scoring from 1-5 they answer 7 questions
about our staff's performance. A Perfect Score (all 5's) is
rewarded with prizes and praise. Here is the story of a Perfect
Score in a Nevada Power Plant, that our D.L. Ricci Sacramento
office achieved. |
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BU Facer to the Rescue - read
full story
The emergency call went out to D.L. Ricci Corp. -The volume
of this gasket made the BU 110 the obvious choice and we had
one ready to go -This call coming in the middle of our busy
season meant a crew of this size was not going to be easy but
10 were picked -This would have to be a 24/7 field job. |
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HPPT Saw Incomparable - read
full story
Allen said, "My Company had used another saw for many years
and it worked OK, but I knew we needed something tougher for
this job. I had a good experience with D.L. Ricci from a previous
clamshell bevel job. I called and they set me up with the HPPT
ATS6.0 Saw." |
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Ricci Field Crew Adapts - read
full story
This big pipeline needed big solutions so the HD66 Clam was
packed - The clam and a crew of two left within hours of the
call - They brought a single point device and a right hand facing
bar. |
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Big Time Heat Treating - read
full story
The Heat Treatment Division at D.L. Ricci Corp. prepared well
ahead of time to organize the equipment and crew necessary to
accomplish the job efficiently - The plan called for 1000 pads
with 350' leads connected to 50 consoles - Fourteen staff would
be required to work the 24/7 operation. |
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Field Machining Down Under - read
full story
A refinery in South Australia was installing a non-return safety
valve in trunk lines between the refinery and pump stations
in the desert.
- A cut was needed and they were unable to use their regular
water jet cutters which required two truckloads of equipment
- Park was given the OK to fly in a Ricci NB16 Clamshell. |
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Combo Tools Get the Job Done - read
full story
Ricci Engineers knew they needed the deep bore attachment that
was used with clamshells for deeper counterbores - They also
knew they would have to design a custom mounting ring to bolt
the MS-12 Clamshell and attachment to the dryer journal. |
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Bigger JTL is Better - read
full story
Ricci Engineers needed to lengthen the travel of the JTL from
24" to 80" to accommodate the entire length of the
open die - By modifying the JTL with 8' bars the 80" of
travel was accomplished - The Ricci customer came to Red Wing
for hands on observation and training on the modified 16"
JTL. |
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Confined Space Specialists - read
full story
Ricci Engineers designed a custom mounting fixture to mount
the 2" Quick-Fix Portable Boring Bar - The original plan
called for boring from the back but technically that proved
impossible - The 2" Portable Boring Bar would work from
the front but required a crew member to crawl inside the compressor
(3ft. hole) to operate the Boring Bar. |
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All Around Effort - read
full story
The challenge came when the Hole Saw vendor discovered their
saw could not get through the 15/16" of 900 F Stainless
Steel. - Another vendor declined to try the cut (too hot) and
then D.L. Ricci was brought in to solve the problem. - Ricci
Engineers and field staff analyzed the situation and engineered
a Hole Saw. - Refinery Staff gave D.L. Ricci Corp. 72 hours
to create a Hole Saw ready for elaborate mock-up testing. |
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Machining With a Deadline - read
full story
All these plans and processes were done within 10 days of receiving
the bid - The original plan involved the rental of a machine
that claimed it could do the job - The plan also involved the
set-up of an elaborate mock-up to demo the process - During
the mock-up the rental machine required much more set-up than
anticipated - Then during the mock-up demo the rental machine
failed to deliver on it's promise - Ricci Engineers had a back-up
plan using our D.L. Ricci Portable Milling Machine - The mock-up
then shifted to the new machine (this was all done over a weekend)
and the Ricci Mill with it's new Rotary Facing Head proved it
could do the job. |
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Ricci Grinder Shines - read
full story
This plant had a roller filled with steam tubes used to steam
dry their product - The 8ft. roller was resting on rolling trunnions,
which after years of use had worn into a dangerous, inefficient
condition - The Trunnion Grinder was implemented to bring safety
and efficiency back. |
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Customizing our Machine Tools - read
full story
Presented with the machining problem, the Ricci engineering
team decided the 4" Feed Screw Bore Bar could do the machining,
but it would take some mounting modifications to fit the valve.
With speed the most critical component, Ricci Staff had only
a day to design and produce the mounting modifications. They
came up with a simple yet ingenious plan to mount and support
the bore bar using 2 coned shaped pieces that exactly matched
the tapers on the sealing surfaces. On the bottom cone piece,
they bolted a section of pipe that could support a spider mounting
system for the bore bar. |
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On-Site Engineering - read
full story
This was a new type of machining job for the contractor who
hired D.L. Ricci Corp. - The original scope of the project had
12 staff proposed, but 6 Ricci Field Machinists (one of them
was Chad, our field engineer) were able to do the job with some
vendor assistance - A D.L. Ricci Axial Feed Module attached
to a MS Clamshell was the recommended choice to do the machining. |
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Jump and Run® - read
full story
A Kansas contractor asked us to bid on some ID prep work at
a Midwestern coal plant - After submitting our bid, we were
told another (cheaper) vendor was awarded the job - Once the
job began the contractor became disappointed in the cheaper
vendor's work - A few days into the outage the cheaper vendor
was kicked off the site - They called to see if D.L. Ricci could
handle this work during our busy outage season. |
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