Drip Torch Design and Fabrication For PPE Manufacturer

The drip torch is an essential tool for performing controlled burns for fuel reduction on properties or during controlled burns by federal agencies. The drip torch's efficient design makes it a popular tool among firefighters, forestry professionals, and property owners. Its ability to dispense fuel through gravity makes it safe and easy to use in different settings. In this project review, we dive into how Western Design & Fabrication design and manufactured a drip torch product.

Overview

Client: Personal Protective Equipment Manufacturer
Industry: U.S. Forestry Service, and rural landowners
Part: Igniter Caps, Roller for Igniter Caps, Assembly of Body & Handle

Challenges

Casting was a challenge. We made five new castings out of aluminum, brass, and bronze. That is something we hadn’t done before.
We had to learn the casting space, and learn who the manufacturers were, and design around their abilities. You can’t just cast it apart and give it to one vendor and another vendor equally. It’s more operations-focused, depending on what tool you’re using.
Creating these castings so that we can do second and third-degree sourcing. We really wanted to ensure that our primary and secondary vendors could achieve these tolerances.
Different manufacturing paradigms and the costing analysis proved difficult, with multiple stakeholders adding input to the project.

Solutions

Going onsite and bringing our vendors here to do relationship building with what those capabilities are. You can’t do this over email, so the visit was very important. It allowed us to tweak and modify the whole project to make this happen.
Came from many different perspectives to come up with the correct course of action on which direction to take. Coming together allowed us to bring a cost associated with the project.
Due to the rigorous design process, we ensured that a third-party agency approved us up to standards through the USDA. Going through this process ensured we stayed up to quality standards.
We created multiple parts on our mills and lathes. We had to incorporate thread cutting with the lathe to make this happen. We can create custom threads. We used our welding center for the final assembly of the body and handle.
Our Tube Bender manufactured curves on some of the specific parts to give them the exact angles they needed to operate.
We utilized our turret punch to create the igniter caps and our roller for the igniter cage. This was a hybrid tool that we had to create. We have the ability to create custom tooling with different applications as a product deems fit.

Results

The drip torch opens an avenue for us to create a tool that firefighters use regularly, allowing us to produce a higher-tiered product with our advanced capabilities.
It paves the way for the mini tactical torch, which is much more common in Europe than North America. It opens up future possibilities of what we can create and challenges we can find solutions for.