The shafts in these photos are from an Italian order we have been working on this week. At first glance they look like ordinary polished rods, but the ends tell the real story: some have external threads, others have tapped centre holes, and several pieces have stepped sections turned down for mounting. The finished batch will go to Italy by sea.
For this kind of job, the Linear Shaft normally starts from a standard hardened or chrome plated rod. The useful part comes later, when the ends are machined to match the customer's equipment. A shaft can have the correct diameter and still be unusable if the thread, shoulder or mounting hole is wrong. That is why we often receive drawings showing more detail at the two ends than along the middle of the shaft.
Our website lists Linear Shaft diameters from 3 mm up to 150 mm, with threading, coaxial drilling and tapping, radial holes and reduced diameter sections available when needed. The pieces in this order are a good example of that work. They are not simply cut to length and sent out; the mounting ends have already been prepared before the customer installs them.
Italy remains a major market for machine tools, robots and automation equipment. A lot of machinery there is built for a particular production job rather than around one universal design, so replacement shafts and custom machined motion parts are a normal requirement. Packaging machines, material handling equipment, woodworking machinery and other automated systems all have places where a Linear Shaft may need to fit an existing bearing, coupling or frame rather than the machine being redesigned around a standard rod.
Once the machining is finished, the shafts are grouped by size before they go into the wooden case. Long polished surfaces do not need much explanation in the workshop: keep them apart, keep the machined ends from knocking together, and do not let the threads take the weight of the other pieces during the sea trip.
We also take Linear Shaft orders from customer drawings or samples. Length, diameter and end machining can all be discussed before production, especially when an old machine needs a replacement part that is no longer available as a standard item.
