Water and fire shaping future of PPB

19 May 2016 | By Keith Hayes, Public Affairs Specialist Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow

The artisans from the machine and sheet metal shops use fire and water to carve parts out of steel at Production Plant Barstow, Marine Depot Maintenance Command.
John Ford is a heavy equipment mechanic assigned to the sheet metal shop at PPB in building 573.
He is a native of Barstow who has been working for the base for eight years. Part of that time he has operated the Prima Zaphiro laser cutter.
“The laser is capable of cutting through steel plating nearly an inch thick,” Ford said.
“Once the specifications for the part we’re going to make are loaded into the computer for the laser,” he continued, “we can knock out a piece like this in about five minutes.”
He was holding a flat piece of metal with several holes and rounded corners which Ford identified as part of a seal that goes on the hood of a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV).
“If we were making this with a traditional punch press, it could take weeks to design the cutting dies to form the part,” he explained.
“I would much rather work with the laser,” Ford said, “even though the lenses have to be calibrated at least once a week because it’s a safer and faster machine.”
The waterjet located in the machine shop right next door to the sheet metal shop, uses a needle fine spray of water combined with ground garnet, a sand-like mineral, to shape and form parts.
Charley Hargon has operated the Omax 120X Jet Machining Center for five years. The native of Vidalia, La., mustered out of the Army in 1977 as an E-4 and has worked as a machinist at the plant for 25 years.
“The smaller Omax uses a 49,000 pounds-per-square-inch jet of water to cut and form metal,” Hargon explained.
“That gives it the ability to cut through armor plating up to six inches thick,” he said. “The larger waterjet ... can generate up to 90,000 pounds of pressure.”
The mounting bed for the material to be cut by the larger Omax is capable of holding a piece of steel big enough to cut out one entire side of a light armored vehicle (LAV) in one piece.
One of the best features about the water jet is that there is virtually no processing required of the finished part after it is cut out.
“We could take this part from here right to the MRAP and weld it on without having to grind away melted areas that you would get with a plasma cutter,” Hargon explained.
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