Precision Valve Polishing Tools
Spartan Precision Valve Polishing Tools
Spartan Felt brings nearly 50 years of experience in the design and manufacture of abrasive products to industry. We provide unmatched design services directly to our customers. We formulate abrasives and have unique impregnation capabilities that provides our customers with many options for challenging projects.
- All design, testing, and manufacturing are done in-house in the USA.
- Polishing tools are customized to the application, with the goal to improve polishing results and efficiency.
- Abrasive type(s) and grit(s) are matched to material being polished.
- We use highest quality polishing material (wool, synthetic fiber, elastomer) based on customer requirements and end use.
- We supply products shaped to provide the specific geometries of valve seats, connection fittings, and ports.
- We pre-mount products on mandrels, then true the shapes on center for perfect rotation.
- We supply lot-to-lot consistency through strict adherence to specs, procedures and ISO standards.
- We verify every lot to meet customer specs with certification available for each lot.
Spartan’s capabilities uniquely serve valve manufacturers by providing polishing solutions based on experience and in-house testing. By working with Spartan, our customers learn they have a strong technical partner in one of the most critical steps of manufacturing – micro-finishing and polishing to create better sealing products.
Precision Valves & Fittings
Standard valves for water or many chemicals operating at standard temperatures and pressures have sealing systems involving elastomers or Teflon and usually do not require any micro-finishing or polishing of sealing areas. Decorative kitchen and bath faucets with highly polished surfaces often have parts that are difficult to polish with standard methods, Spartan can supply specialty shapes for polishing these areas. Spartan also supplies a variety of abrasive products for deburring cast components.
Specialty valves operating in high temperatures, high pressures, or regulating harsh chemicals or gas require very tight seals. These seals are typically metal to metal, because other materials don’t perform in these applications. Metal to metal sealing surfaces must be highly polished to eliminate surface imperfections that will affect the seal. The average surface roughness in micro-inches over a profile or an area (Ra) is the general method used to measure and specify surface.
Metal to metal sealing valves are most commonly a needle type, consisting of a stem (plunging shaft) with a tip (male end of the stem) shaped to fit precisely in a seat (female opening).
Diaphragm valves are used where the material being transferred is very viscous or high in solids, which makes passing through a needle valve a problem. These can also have metal to metal seals for use in high pressure, high temperature, or harsh transport-material conditions. The metal to metal sealing area of the diaphragm needs to be highly polished for a tight seal. Diaphragms are also used in other valves types to act as pressure actuators.
Ports are openings and pathways for materials enter, move through, and exit the valve body. Ports serve as connection points for the material being controlled, but also might supply compressed air or hydraulic fluid, for example, that control the valve’s function. Valves allowing multiple directions for flow can have ports going straight through, or “T” shaped, or “L” shaped, or a combination. For high performance valves, ports may require polishing of connection points to seal, or to eliminate surface imperfections in pathways that would otherwise affect material flow. One method of polishing internal pathways by the use of abrasive fluid, pumping through the pathways, but this method is slow. Polishing port openings, seals, as well as “T” and “L” configurations can be done more quickly with bobs designed for the application.
Compression Fittings are used when connecting tubing, usually hard plastic “compression” tubing, or metal tubing. The materials available for fittings and tubing allow for transfer of harsh chemicals and operation under very high temperatures and pressures. The fitting will be made up of a “ferrule” (a compression ring), a body with a “seat” shaped to fit the ferrule, and a nut that applies the compression pressure. Plastic fittings are often used in moderate pressure applications, such as compressed air. In very high pressure applications, the fitting components are often made of stainless steel, and the seal between the ferrule and the body “seat” must fit exactly. Polishing the body seat and ferrule surfaces will ensure that the specified shapes are exact, and remove imperfections in the metal surface that could cause leaking.
