Cast iron beam clamps are used by the construction industry to hang pipes, conduit and other utilities from the structured membranes of industrial and commercial buildings.  They are C-shaped castings with a tapped hole in both the top and bottom legs.

When purchased, the beam clamp has a threaded screw with jam nut in one hole which is used to attach the clamp to the structural steel and the hole is tapped with threads to accept threaded components installed during installation.

Our task was to design a machine to accept cast beam clamps in bulk, drill and tap both holes and install a threaded screw and lock nut at the rate of 1200 per hour.

Beam clamps are dumped by forklift into the vibratory hopper which meters the cast iron part into a vibratory bowl that orients and simulates the casting and feeds the parts to the two drill heads for drilling and tapping.  In the meantime screws and nuts are also being presented, assembled together and threaded into the beam clamp.

Assembled parts had to meet our customer’s specification concern cross threading, depth of screw engagement, perpendicularity, throughput etc.

The machine was designed, built and ready for runoff in approximately 14 weeks, installation and a second runoff was completed in another 3 weeks.