Parts are Designed to Break?


Sacrificial Parts

If you work in industrial mechanics or engineering you’ve heard of sacrificial gears, set screws and pins. Your mechanics come off of the factory floor and say they have a gear, like the one below, with sheared off teeth. These parts are designed to break, but you don’t have a replacement and nothing else on the machine is broken. They have no replacements and nothing else on the machine broke. These are considered sacrificial parts.

Sacrificial parts    Sacrificial Parts Replacement

The Purpose Of Sacrificial Parts

The reason machines use sacrificial parts is simple, to ensure a certain part breaks before something bigger happens. Generally speaking the part is designed to shear off or snap. This normally happens with rotating or reciprocating parts. For example if a shaft is spinning on a machine and something causes it to bind the first gear in contact with it is often a sacrificial gear. This means it is the first piece to break but luckily it is also the cheapest. It is normally made out of brass meaning it is softer than steel. When this part breaks it prevents the binding force on the shaft from snapping other gears, or torquing on other parts of the machine.

Replacing A Sacrificial Part

Though these parts are designed to break many factories do not carry them in stock. If you had every sacrificial gear in stock for every machine on your plant floor you would need a small warehouse. This leaves you with two options. The first is to try and order from the manufacturer, which you will find is very expensive and may take a more than a week to receive. Your other choice is to bring it to your local machine shop. Cliff industrial is more than capable of making your replacement sacrificial parts. Bring us the broken gear, shaft or pin and we will happily and quickly make you a replacement. With rush options you may even have it the next morning.

Get a Replacement Fast!

If you need a Replacement Sacrificial part feel free to bring it down to Cliff Industrial or Click here for a free quote

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