Cutting gears takes precision equipment as well as the expertise to operate that equipment in order to get companies the highest quality service and products available.
But with all the different types of gears needed, it may be a challenge to find just the right company for the job.
The experts at Lone Star Machine Repair have that expertise — and more — to tackle any and all gear cutting jobs.
Full spectrum of service
Lone Star Machine Repair offers a full spectrum of services and repair ranging anywhere from inspection to a complete reverse engineering service. The company works with more than 250 OEM manufacturers to ensure quality parts and services to reduce downtime and increase productivity.
Lone Star Machine Repair achieves this by having state-of-the-art gear cutting equipment and machinery combined with quality service that includes beveled gear-grinding gearboxes, remanufacturing, helical gears, worm gears, herringbone grinding, bull gears, and planetary gearbox repair.
The industries Lone Star Machine Repair serves include the oil and gas industry, food service, steel mills, rubber and plastic, mining, and more.
According to Lone Star Machine Repair Vice President Wally Nicholas, the company can save its customers up to 50 percent from purchasing new from an OEM.
“We specialize in cutting all types of makes and materials of gears — even herringbone, sergeant stripes, straight tooth, spur, all types, all makes of gears,” he said. “We do helix angle and straight tube gears as well, giving customers basically OEM specs, and we’re using the latest gear cutting equipment.”
Those gear shapers and cutters include machines from Gleason and EMAG, as well as CNC machines made by Haas and Mori Seiki — all the latest machines needed to do whatever job is needed, according to Nicholas.
Customer tailored needs
“Whatever’s in the box and needs to be cut, that’s what we do,” he said. “It’s basically up to the customer. We tailor to their needs. We extend the life and durability of your gears with our comprehensive rebuilding services, which can restore gears to like-new condition and outlast OEM parts by up to three times.”
By using advanced techniques to penetrate and rebuild gear surfaces, Lone Star Machine Repair can reduce wear and friction and enhance performance, according to Nicholas. This service is ideal for various gears and gearboxes used in a myriad of industries. Those advanced cutting techniques include extending the life and wear of a cutting edge by penetrating the surface with a boron fusion nitrite treating process.
“By having the material absorbed beneath the surface, this reduces friction up to 85 percent and will also protect and enhance performance,” he said.
Other services offered by Lone Star Machine Repair include coating services to enhance the durability and efficiency of equipment, as well as rebuilding, reconditioning, and hard chrome plating all types and makes of straightening rolls, leveling rolls, and forming rolls.
The most important part
With all that Lone Star Machine Repair offers, Nicholas emphasized that, ultimately, the customer is the most important part of how his company does business.
“It always comes down to one thing — just keeping the customer happy,” he said. “We like to pride ourselves on always making the customer happy.”
The start of making a customer happy is proper communication, according to Nicholas.
“We approach the customer with communication,” he said. “It’s knowing our customers’ needs and understanding the cause of the problem and also understanding what needs to be done. That’s the only way you’re going to do it. That’s the only way you’re going to overcome that challenge, is by knowing what failed.”
Once Nicholas and his team get a customer into their shop, the first step is to have their part Magnafluxed, which is a nondestructive testing methodology that identifies surface discontinuities in ferrous metal.
“If there are any prints, that would help, but if not, we use our best engineers out here for their expertise,” he said. “But first, we want to have everything Magnafluxed and then check the prints for cracking, for brittleness, and if they need to be stress relieved. If so, we would accommodate them with all of that and apply that with a warranty.”
Finding better solutions
Lone Star Machine Repair’s expertise doesn’t stop at just mimicking what the customer requests. Nicholas said that if there’s a better, more economical, way to solve a customer’s problem, Lone Star Machine Repair’s team will make that option available.
“Sometimes, a customer comes in here, and they’re wanting a job done a certain way, but in reality, it doesn’t need to be that way; they’re actually going an extra mile unnecessarily,” he said. “We can educate them that doing it our way would be a better outcome and be more cost effective with less downtime.”
As an example, Nicholas said a customer might come in who is using a 41/40 uncarburized gear with a type of nylon material. Lone Star Machine Repair could replace that with a 61/80 carburized gear, which would make the gear more durable and make the actions to process last longer, which, in turn, makes the gear last longer and the gearbox last longer.
“For the material and for the load that it’s supposed to carry, and knowing and seeing that it was uncarburized or just seeing what material it’s made of, we would learn from that and say: This is the way you have to do it; this gear has to be carburized,” he said.
Keeping up with the industry
Trying to stay one step ahead of an industry that is constantly evolving can be a challenge, but Nicholas said there are steps Lone Star Machine Repair continues to take to ensure the company is offering the best the industry can produce.
“We’re always looking for new technology and always speaking to the customers in order to see what’s going on and what might be the best way to prevent cracks and other deformations from happening again,” he said. “We’re constantly improving, and we’ve added a preventative maintenance program as well.”
When asked what a typical day is like at Lone Star Machine Repair, Nicholas jokingly responds, “Chaos.” But he means that in a good way where every member of his team is laser-focused on their individual tasks.
“Everybody’s always staying on the ball and staying focused,” he said. “That’s the best way I’m going to have to describe it: Everybody doing their job; everybody staying at their post; everybody staying focused and ready to satisfy the customer.”
Above and beyond
Focusing on the customer can mean going that extra mile to ensure those customers are flourishing as well, according to Nicholas.
“During the pandemic, we helped small companies stay up and running,” he said. “During and after the pandemic, we helped them out a lot, and we pride ourselves in that. And I’m going to have to say, we didn’t worry about the cost. We were just happy to assist them in running. I was very proud for us helping the small U.S. companies.”
That goes back to remembering the company’s roots, according to Nicholas. Lone Star Machine Repair was started by Nicholas’ father in 1980. Before that, his father was working for a major company in Texas in 1979, where he saw a demand for gear repairs in the oil industry. That spurred him to open his own gear repair shop to service the industry.
But Nicholas is quick to point out that, even with more than 40 years of experience, Lone Star Machine Repair always will look for ways to add to its expertise in an industry that continues to shift its priorities.
“The future of the gear-cutting industry in the next 10 years will likely include shaping and advancement in automation position, such as 3D printing and key trend cutting — a lot of automated systems,” he said. “It’ll be more advanced, and, hopefully, we’ll advance with the times as well.”
More info: www.lmrepair.com
