Jigs, Fixtures and Tooling Components

Vajra Techno machines jigs, fixtures, dies, punches, die plates and tooling components to customer drawings on vertical and horizontal machining centres at Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, in mild steel, cast iron, aluminium and stainless steel. Tooling is supplied pan-India.

What tooling work is undertaken?

• Machining fixtures — locating and clamping fixtures for milling and drilling operations
• Drill jigs — plate and box jigs with bushed drill locations
• Assembly and welding fixtures — locating frames and weld jigs
• Inspection fixtures — checking and gauge fixtures for repeat dimensional verification
• Die and press components — die plates, punch plates, stripper plates, backing plates
• Punches, dies and die shoes — machined to your tooling drawings
• Tooling plates and sub-plates — gridded and dowelled base plates

Do you design tooling, or build to drawing?

The default route is build to your tooling drawings. Tooling design from a part print — fixture concept, locating scheme, clamp selection, stack-up calculation — is quoted on request as a separate line. State clearly on the enquiry which one you are sending: a finished tooling drawing, or a part print expecting a design. That single line decides how the job is quoted.

Why is fixture tolerance tighter than part tolerance?

A fixture consumes part of the tolerance budget of every component made on it. Locator position error, bush position error and clamp-induced deflection all transfer directly into the machined part. A fixture built to the same tolerance as the part it produces cannot deliver that part.

Fixture-critical features are therefore machined to a tighter band than the part print calls, and that band is derived from your part tolerance rather than picked in isolation. State the part tolerance the fixture has to support, and the locator position and locating-face flatness the fixture will be built to are confirmed in writing before the tooling is quoted.

Which materials are used for tooling?

Fixture bodies and base plates are normally mild steel or cast iron for stiffness and dimensional stability, or aluminium where the fixture must be lifted by hand between setups. Stainless steel 304 and 316 are used where the fixture sees coolant, washdown or corrosive process media.

Tool steel grades for punches, dies and wear inserts — and hardened tool steel work with post-hardening finishing — are quoted on request. State the grade and the required hardness on the enquiry, because both change the process route and the sequence in which features are finished.

How are dowel and bush locations machined?

Dowel holes and bush bores are the features that carry the fixture's accuracy, so they are machined in a single setup wherever the geometry allows. Machining a dowel pattern across two setups introduces a location error between the halves of the pattern, which then appears in every part the fixture produces.

Where a pattern cannot be completed in one setup, the second setup locates on dowels machined in the first, keeping the error chain short and traceable to one datum. The dowel-hole position the tooling will be built to is confirmed against your tooling drawing at quotation.

Are hardened bushes and wear parts fitted?

Drill bush and liner bush fitting, and the supply of hardened wear inserts, are quoted on request. Where you supply the bushes, the bore is machined to your bush press-fit specification and the bushes are fitted at our end if you ask for it.

Who owns a fixture built for a machining order?

Where a fixture is built to run your part on our floor, fixture cost, ownership and storage terms are stated in writing on the quotation before order. There is no ambiguity introduced later. Customer-owned fixtures sent to us are stored against your part number and returned on request.

Fixture cost is quoted as a separate line from piece price so you can see what is one-time tooling and what is recurring. Amortising tooling silently into the piece price is not done.

What lead time does tooling carry?

Tooling lead time runs longer than production part lead time, because each item is a one-off carrying its own process plan and its own inspection. Lead time is quoted against the specific tooling rather than published as a general figure. Where the tooling gates a production start date, say so on the enquiry so it is scheduled against that date and not against general shop load.

How is tooling inspected before delivery?

Tooling is inspected against every dimension on the tooling drawing, with attention to locator positions, bush bore positions and datum-face flatness, since those features determine what the tooling can hold. A written report is supplied with the tooling. Inspection equipment held in-house is listed on the capabilities page.

How do I get tooling quoted?

Send the tooling drawing — or the part print plus the required part tolerance if you need the design route confirmed — with material grade, hardness requirement and required date, through the RFQ form or to vajratechnoinc@gmail.com. NDAs are signed before drawing review where required.