Precision Ceramic Components

Precision ceramic parts are a machining business more than a ceramics business. The pressing gets you close; the diamond grinding decides whether the part works. We hold ±0.005 mm in routine production and Ra 0.1 µm on lapped faces.

What makes a ceramic part hard to make

• Shrinkage. Every part shrinks 17–20% linearly during firing, and the shrinkage is not perfectly uniform in a thick section. Grinding after firing is what converts a fired blank into a dimension.
• Hardness. Alumina at 88–90 HRA cannot be cut with conventional tooling; everything is diamond-ground, slowly, which is why machining is the largest part of a precision part’s cost.
• Brittleness. A part can be scrapped by a chip in the wrong place, so edge preparation and handling are part of the specification.
• Stress. Sharp internal corners and abrupt section changes crack during firing or later in service. We will tell you where your design needs a radius.

Tolerances we hold in production

Achievable tolerance depends on size, aspect ratio and geometry. Send the drawing and we will confirm what we can hold — in writing, before the quotation.

The three families we make most often

• Shafts, sleeves and bushings for pumps, valves, flow meters and metering equipment
• Nozzles and tubes for blasting, spraying, welding, burners and injection
• Substrates, plates and insulators for thick-film, high-voltage and vacuum duty