Under the Hood: the ARKU FlatMaster 120

ARKU Inc. has what you might call a working showroom in its very modern North American headquarters in Cincinnati, OH. Machines of many sizes are on the floor, doing a multitude of different jobs on any given day. We chose a day where we could get our story done during the lunch hour—things were very busy, and we did not need much time.

The ARKU leveling machines we have covered with an Under the Hood story include the medium-duty EcoMaster 30, and the leveler for very thin and small materials, the EcoMaster 12. For this Under the Hood story, we are jumping up a level or two in terms of thickness and width of materials. While we do not max out the machine, we are using inch-thick bars this time around. The bars are 4 inches wide and 48 inches long.

Several models of the FlatMaster 120

Before we get into our job at hand, we should find out more about the FlatMaster 120. Three models of this machine are available. Each of them can handle part/material thicknesses of 0.06” to 1.6.” Because of the size of the rollers, parts must be at least 8.5” in length. All the models are hydraulic, feature a quick-change system for the rollers and backup rollers, and offer leveling gap control and overload protection. They all use the same control as well, a combination of touch screen and a few buttons.

There are two main differences between the models:

• The Model 130 has a maximum part width of 1,300 mm (51”) and weighs 102,000 lbs.;
• The Model 160 has a maximum part width of 1,600 mm (63”) and weighs 111,000 lbs; and
• The Model 200 has a maximum part width of 2,000 mm (79”) and weighs 128,000 lbs.

If you need capacity and width, the Model 200 is your choice (and is the one we used in this story). Although you may be surprised that this model weighs 4,000 lbs. more than the landing weight of a Boeing 737-400, it takes a lot of metal to bend a lot of metal (much in the way a diamond cuts a diamond). You cannot have “heavy duty” without “heavy” and still expect a machine like this to last.

Some of the applications for the FlatMaster 120 include construction machinery manufacturing, crane technology, flame-cutting shops, and stainless steel and precious metal processing companies. Additionally, the FlatMaster 120 is equally effective on parts from laser, plasma, or flame cutters.

Such a machine equipped with the FlatJack system measures and controls flatness directly (and the results show) on the leveler. We purposely did not employ the FlatJack for this job. The FlatJack can measure flatness in tenths of a millimeter, but our job did not demand quite that much precision.

The job at hand

We decided to show the capabilities of the FlatMaster 120 by using three steel bars as described above. The bars were far from straight, and each diverted from straight by 14 mm.

–POP QUIZ—

Here is the first pop quiz in an Under the Hood story: To get a 14 mm bend in the bars, we had to do something. What did we do? What did we use? (We did not use a press brake, you would have seen the “bump” marks.)

1. We sent them through an angle roll
2. We sent them through a plate roll
3. We sent them through the FlatMaster 120

(The answer is at the end of the article.)

Before we go any further into our job, it is time to get a quick introduction from Denis Weinfurtner, who does marketing for ARKU Inc. and is well versed in the product line: