A PPLICATION R EPORT
ABOVE AND BEYOND H O N I N G
NEW SUNNEN BORE MACHINING SYSTEM IS THE "WEAPON OF CHOICE"
FOR PRECISION PAINTBALL MARKER BARRELS
Dale Carpenter, owner of
Custom Products, shows
precision paintball marker
barrels produced with the
Sunnen SV-1000 Series vertical
honing machine and metal-bond
diamond MMT tool. Custom
Products makes more than 1,000
different barrels - all sized with
the single MMT tool - to supply
paintball marker OEM’s, retailers
and its own retail operation via
internet sales and on-site at
paintball tournaments.
GILBERT, AZ – With its
roots in forestry and
agriculture, paintball
has evolved from a
means to mark trees
and cattle to an
organized team sport
played by millions of
people in more than 60
countries worldwide.
Players now compete in
paintball tournaments
where $10K-plus purses
are common. As the
sport has evolved, so
too has the equipment.
Manufacturers now
specialize in the
production of
aftermarket parts for
high-performance
paintball guns - called
"markers" by those
who play the game.
One such
equipment manufacturer is Mesa Custom
Machining, which is better known as
Custom Products or CP to paintball
aficionados. Mesa Custom Machining
owner Dale Carpenter has always had his
own products to sell, along with machine
time. Under the Custom Products banner,
Carpenter has enjoyed great success with
performance go-cart parts and high-tech
yo-yos. In the last decade, Custom Products
has become a "big gun" in the world of
paintball, employing 30 people at its 15,000
square-foot facility.
CP uses a Sunnen SV-1000 Series
vertical honing machine to create a
competitive advantage on and off the
paintball playing field, producing one and
two-piece marker barrels made to precise
specifications for pro-level paintball
players.
The surface finish and diameter of a
paintball marker barrel are key components
in its performance, as are the barrel's
straightness and roundness, according to
Carpenter. Shooters want the paintball to
fit as perfectly as possible down the entire
length of the bore. However, paintballs are
non-uniform due to their composition –
essentially a large, round "gel capsule"
filled with paint. "Paintballs are somewhat
'squishy' and their dimensions can vary
Control bores for two-piece paintball marker
barrels. Advantage of two-piece barrels is the
paint ball only comes in contact with the 5.5-inch
control bore. High level players keep multiple
control bores, each sized for a specific diameter
paintball. Note the barrel size engraved near the
top of the bore.
based on atmospheric conditions, such as
temperature and humidity," says Carpenter.
"This, in turn, affects how the ball travels
through the barrel, so tournament players
compensate by having multiple barrels,
each with a few thousandths of an inch
difference in diameter."
(continued)
1
Custom Products, manufactures
one- and two-piece paintball
marker barrels in five diameters
(0.682”, 0.685”, 0.689”, 0.693”
and 0.696”). CP uses a Sunnen
SV-1000 Series Vertical
Honing machine to meet the
specifcations of pro-level
paintball players.
Tournament-level players may have 8-10
different barrels to accommodate
inconsistencies in the dimensions of their
ammunition. That's where the SV-1000
honing system has earned a reputation as
the weapon of choice for quick production
of single pieces or hundreds.
CP manufactures one-piece and twopiece barrels in five diameters - 0.682",
0.685", 0.689", 0.693" and 0.696" - to fit the
various makes of paintball markers. While
one-piece and two-piece barrels are almost
equal in performance, the advantage of a
two-piece barrel is that the ball is only in
contact with the barrel for the first 5.5",
known as the control bore, resulting in less
total friction and less use of valuable
compressed air. Sometimes the difference
in winning and losing a tournament is the
last 20 or so shots. Less air per shot equals
more shots and a greater chance for victory.
"With the different bore sizes and
barrel lengths for the various makes of
markers, we have more than 1000 different
part numbers for barrels available from our
inventory," says Carpenter. While CP
typically produces lots of several hundred
barrels, the CNC hone gives it the flexibility
to provide quick turnaround and meet
customer needs. "Quick shipping is a big
issue for us," says Carpenter. "The CNC
honing system lets us knock out a special
barrel in minutes if we have to. We save a
program for every part by name, length,
and bore size. If we get an order for a part
that we don't have on the shelf and we
need right away, we can drop an un-honed
part into the machine and in a couple of
minutes I've got one ready to go. I can have
it polished, sent out for overnight
anodizing and out the door the next day."
The success of CP in manufacturing
precision aftermarket paintball marker
barrels was not overnight. "We started
with only 12" barrels and they go to 16","
says Carpenter. "Initially, we struggled to
get the bore size and finish produced on a
consistent basis. I never realized how much
science is in this."
The Sunnen SV-1000 Series vertical honing
machine on the Custom Products shop floor
with paintball marker barrels loaded and ready
for honing. A clip-in-place fixture allows loading
of five parts per cycle. CP has a program saved
for each part number - allowing quick
turnaround times to meet customer needs. A
single Sunnen MMT tool can adjust to produce
any bore size made by CP.
CP uses a Citizen screw machine to
manufacture barrel blanks, starting with
precision tubing at 1" OD. The tubing is
extruded using dies Carpenter had made to
order. The Citizen does all the outside
(continued)
2
Custom Products-sponsored pro
team San Antonio X-Factor takes
to the battlefield. CP also sponsors
five-time World Champion pro
team San Diego Dynasty. Prize
money for professional-level
players can reach $10,000 or more
per tournament. Note the
paintballs in flight on the left side
of the photo.
work from
porting to cut
off. It goes from
there to the
hone. "The bore
is already true,
concentric,
round to the
OD," says
Carpenter. "It's
just not dead
accurate
dimensionally
and the hone
brings it out to
size in one shot."
Prior to the CNC hone, CP had four
employees on dayshift and 2 on nightshift
running manual hones. Now there is one
operator on the CNC hone and one
employee doing hand polishing, and the
two produce more parts per day in a single
shift than six did before – approximately
250 barrels.
Custom Products makes more than 1,000
different barrels in various lengths and bore
diameters to fit the many makes of paintball
markers.
Initially, Carpenter looked into
broaching and drilling options to produce
final bore size, before settling on honing. "I
spent thousands with engineers who said
they could drill this part," said Carpenter.
"We would drill a 16" barrel on an HMC, and
get a good one, but the next one would not
be concentric with the OD. We also tried
working with just one size of tubing using
broaching, but we just could not get the
dead-on accuracy we wanted." Honing was
determined to be the best option to
consistently produce precision bore size,
but productivity and flexibility were issues.
Carpenter went to Sunnen with his
requirements for cycle time, production
volume and part accuracy and charged it
with developing a solution. "We told
Sunnen we wanted as many parts as
possible processed in one loading cycle,"
says Carpenter. Sunnen came back with an
idea for a five-position rotary table, and
together with CP developed the best way
to fixture the part without distorting it.
The operator loads five parts per cycle via a
clip-in-place arrangement suggested by
Carpenter and developed by Sunnen. A
steel collar is threaded onto the barrel,
dropped into the fixture and locked in
place. Fixturing the collar prevents any
tension or pressure that would cause
distortion of the aluminum tube during
honing. The table rotates under CNC
control, five parts cycle under the spindle,
they get honed and then the operator
reloads.
Carpenter says he uses only a
fraction of the SV-1000's accuracy
potential, requiring only ±0.001" accuracy
in his parts, but gets the advantages of
exceptional consistency, flexibility and
productivity from the CNC machine. "This
machine will produce parts all day that are
accurate to ±0.000010", but this becomes
moot when you have a hand polishing step
after honing," he explains. "We hone our
parts undersize by 0.0005" to allow for
some slight bit of metal removal in the
polishing step. Sunnen's metal-bond
diamond MMT tool essentially does not
wear on aluminum, so we rarely offset the
tool. More important from a cost and
(continued)
3
A Custom Products machine
operator loads the Sunnen SV1000 Series Vertical Honing
Machine with paintball marker
barrels for precision honing. A
metal collar is threaded onto
the barrel, then it’s dropped
into the fixture and locked in
place. Fixturing the collar
prevents tension or pressure
that would cause distortion of
the barrel during honing.
productivity standpoint, this single MMT
tool is capable of sizing the entire range of
bore diameters we produce."
The added capacity of the CNC
machine enables CP to supply barrels to
paintball marker OEM's, retailers, and its
own retail operation
(www.customproducts.us). In addition, the
company has a traveling staff that attends
paintball tournaments with a 53-foot Volvo
tractor trailer conducting on-site sales of
their barrels, regulators and other marker
accessories. CP also sponsors several pro
paintball teams, which helps increase
brand awareness with the target market.
"We have very limited job shop work
now," Carpenter says. "Our own product
line takes most of our capacity. We have
doubled our sales since 1996, with only a
small percent of it now as job shop work."
From selling high-tech yo-yos, to
speed parts for go-carts to paintball marker
barrels, Carpenter will always be on the
lookout for the next niche to fill … and his
next big idea.
4
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X-NR-1004
01/14-POD