Services

Supplying Completed Assemblies

With in-house capabilities to supply friction assemblies from start to finish let Great Lakes Friction Products do the job for you. With the addition of a 150 ton punch press and robotic welding to our already expansive fabrication capabilities Great Lakes Friction Products is able to offer Stampings, Fabrications and Weldments all done in house at a cost which reflects our low overhead. If unable to completely process here Great Lakes Frictions has established relationships with several quality outside sources.

Processing Customer Suppl ied Materials  

As a company who recognizes the diverse concepts of inventory control, Great Lakes Friction Products offers the service of processing customer-supplied materials. Whether it is Steel Carriers, Friction Linings or all the necessary components to complete your assembly. Great Lakes Friction Products will process your order using your supplied components in an expeditious manner.
 

Assistance in Friction Material Selection

With over fifty years of experience in the friction material industry let our specialist assist you with friction material selection and evaluation. Our extensive history with non-asbestos friction materials enables us the ability to offer our expertise and experience in qualifying materials to a wide array of applications.

Assistance in assembly design

When you form a partnership with Great Lakes Friction Products you harness design and supply capabilities backed by fifty-five years of experience. Whatever the challenge, Great Lakes Friction Products engineers have the expertise and resources to provide a timely and efficient solution. As R&D proceeds at Great Lakes, steps include Cad-Cam design, prototyping, metallurgical and durability studies and state-of- the-art frictional properties testing. The end result is a high tech solution tailored precisely to your needs.

Application Testing

Ready, willing and able is the approach Great Lakes Friction will take when asked to perform application testing. Today it is becoming increasingly difficult to find engineering and lab time to conduct adequate testing for qualifying materials. If our customer or potential customer is able to supply us with test units we are willing and able to conduct performance tests on existing and proposed materials.

Samples

With the understanding that samples are vital to securing new business, Great Lakes Friction will offer material samples at little or no cost. Aware the necessity for new friction material sources to be qualified, Great Lakes Friction strives to keep these costs to a minimum. With stock items we will usually offer a sample order at no or reduced cost.

Products

Light Duty Brake Bands

In house fabrication capabilities makes Great Lakes Friction Products the countries leading manufacturer of light-duty brake bands.

High quality cold rolled steel construction.

Steel thickness' to 14 gauge.

Widths available to 1.5 inches.

Diameters from 1.75” to 10”.

Several standard end sizes and configurations.

Penetrating projection welded ends.

Wide variety of lining types and sizes

Short lead times.

Heavy Duty Brake Bands

As our fabrication capabilities expand so does our ability. With in-house forming and robotic welding we can offer some of the more complex heavy-duty brake bands at competitive prices...

Industrial Brake Shoes

Great Lakes Friction is able to offer brake shoes in all different shapes and sizes. Utilizing hydraulic activated bonding fixtures enables adequate bonding pressure throughout the largest of brake shoes.

Lined Clutch Shoes

Lining centrifugal clutch shoes offer smoother engagements along with increase torque. Semi-automated bonding fixtures and conveyor type ovens enable us to be one of the most competitive sources for your lined clutch shoes.

Dry Friction Discs

Non-liquid cooled or dry run friction discs can be used as clutch discs, torque limiters or brakes. Great Lakes Friction is able to supply discs in all different types of configurations. Discs or “washers” stamped from strips offer an economical means achieve frictional requirements. Specially engineered tool design enables tight tolerances on diameters along with excellent edge conditions. With the ability to stamp gear teeth or shapes this offers an excellent alternative to individually molded discs. Bonded discs offer higher torque ratings for heavy-duty driven plates. Bonding capabilities ranging in size from .5 “ to 48” diameters.

Wet Friction Plates

Wet or oil immersed friction discs are used in applications where additional cooling is required or in environments where exposure to lubricants cannot be avoided.

Other Friction Assemblies

Not limited to the typical bands, shoes, and discs. Great Lakes Friction can offer several different types of cones, cups, pads, brackets or any other configuration required.

Capabilities

Bonding

Several years of bonding friction materials enables Great Lakes Friction the experience to offer the highest quality bonded friction assemblies.

Quality materials and extensively developed processes reinforce our philosophy that any questionable bond is unacceptable.

• Material analysis to familiarize us with to what we are bonding.  Whether it is “high tech” plastics, powdered metal, aluminum or carbon steel.  We have the knowledge and the resources to offer the highest quality bonds.
• Engineered bonding fixtures to insure quality bonds done in efficient means.
• Extensive and regulated material preparation is performed on all materials before bonding.  Our bond is only as good as the surfaces we adhere to.
• The highest quality adhesives are used to enable our bond to maintain their strength and integrity with high shear loads at elevated temperatures.

Riveting

Recognizing that riveting is still is necessary in some applications.  Great lakes Friction maintains three automatic riveting machines with the versatility to handle several different styles and sizes.

Molding

Ingeniously engineered mold design is our advantage when confronted with complicated molded and integrally molded assemblies.

When a molded part is necessary Great Lakes Friction can offer cost cutting solutions on processes and tools.   Working with both compression and flash molding techniques gives us the flexibility of alternative mold designs.

Integrally molding assemblies offer a mechanically assisted bond between friction material and steel.  This can be a good alternative for applications that encounter high temperatures in application.  Friction compound is molded directly onto and into a steel carrier.  Strategically sized and located holes in the carrier offer a place for the material to flow and form a mechanical grip to the backing plate.

Die Cutting

Low cost tooling is one of the many benefits of a die cut part.  Since implementing a “traveling head die cutting press” Great Lakes Friction has been able to offer reductions in both tool costs and set-up times. 

Die cutting is ideal for softer, thinner materials. Parts are cut out from material with razor sharp knives in “cookie cutter” like fashion.  A properly maintained die can hold tolerances of +/- .005” over several thousand parts. 

Finish Grinding

Surface, rotary, conveyor belt and Gardener “double disc” grinders enable us to hold flatness, thickness and parallelism tolerances to .001”.  These grinding capabilities make it possible for us to offer parts with “out of box torque”.

Finish Machining

When parts are not suited to the grinding process machining is often a viable alternative.  Our production lathes are capable of maintaining thickness and run-out tolerances of .001”

Grooving

For parts that would require oil or wiping grooves, Great Lakes Friction has the capabilities to handle plates up to 42” diameter.  The operation of three grooving machines helps eliminate any bottlenecking which can often occur in secondary or finish processing.

Stamping

In these days of “lean manufacturing” we found it best to rely on ourselves rather than outside sources.  In-house stamping gives us the flexibility to schedule all of our needs in accordance with our ever-changing customers’ requirements.

Punch press sizes from 5 to 150 tons makes us more than just a friction material supplier.  With our presses and additional support equipment we are able to offer our customers parts from start to finish.  

Welding

Capabilities that include Spot, Projection, Mig and CNC Robotic Mig are another means in which we maintain an edge.  To satisfy the ever-increasing demand of supplying fabricated friction assemblies we felt it vital to maintain an up to date welding department. 

Since the acquisition of a CNC Robotic Welder it has opened the door for us to expand our in-house capabilities to include a variety of heavy-duty brake bands.

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