Why is Granite the Metrology Material of Choice for Wenzel?

Wenzel-America-Granite-for-CMMs
Granite

In case you haven’t noticed, we love granite.

Granite is the primary building material for all of our machines for the main reason that it provides the most metrologically stable base to build our high accuracy CMMs from.

But granite is important to us for a few other reasons too.

For one, it’s what our company is founded on.

Our ability to efficiently build CMMs from granite that we process in-house is a cornerstone of what we do and how we do it. It’s our heritage as much as anything and it sets a tone for both our engineering and product development.

Not only is it the most stable metrology material to build from, but designing our processes around granite gives us a stable vision and a consistency in how we approach new products and technology.

Some would say that consistency over time defines quality. We wouldn’t argue that.

CMM Rough Granite SlabAnother undeniable benefit of being so “Granite-centric” is we have developed unrivaled expertise in our processes over decades. Whereas, if we’d lost focus or consistency we would not have the level of quality we do.

CMM Rough Granite SlabKeep in mind once the rock leaves the ground at the quarry, we control all the manufacturing processes required to build a machine. Nothing is left to chance – Rough Cut – Grinding – Hand Lapping – and all other related steps – done internally, by our staff, with our equipment.

This is crucial because it allows us control over the most critical part of our production, but it also gives us tremendous flexibility in what we make. If you’d like to learn more about how we maintain this quality from quarry all the way to placing the CMM on your floor read our prior blog post here.

CMM large granite slab

For instance, if you make long thin parts – Say, 150mm x 150mm x 3700mm – we can build you a machine exactly to those needs just as easily as we could build a stock size. Because we control the raw material and the complete process, we have the flexibility to create an effectively stockmachine, for your custom application.

Conversely, if you have a room that will only fit a machine that is 3500mm x 3500mm x 2200mm, we can make you one that fits those constraints while maximizing the measuring volume for your parts.

Or maybe you make parts that for their size – say a cube of 1000mm – are very heavy. Possibly weighing as much as 12,000 lbs. We can build a machine with a thicker plate that will accept these heavier loads, without having to increase the overall size of the machine.

This flexibility gives us the unique ability to offer solutions that allow you the customer to make decisions that are best for your project needs, without having to compromise because of the limitations of a vendor’s stock product offerings.