Perfected Alignment: Professional Machinist Parallels at Penn Tool Co.
To set your raw material at an exact, level height inside a vise, you need heavy-duty setup bars that eliminate errors and won't flex under clamping force. Since 1968, Penn Tool Co. has been the trusted destination for premium, ground layout bars that setup technicians and CNC programmers rely on to elevate parts safely above the vise bed.
Discover our massive selection of precision-ground spacing blocks, carefully calibrated in pairs to guarantee that your upper and lower stock faces remain strictly parallel. Our budget-friendly pricing helps you stock every milling station with high-tier setup gear while maintaining strict dimensional control on every part run.
Rugged Reference Bars for High-Accuracy Workholding
Simplify your part alignment routines and eliminate part tilt by choosing from Penn Tool Co.’s comprehensive catalog of industrial machine shop standards. We offer the versatile spacing solutions required to match your specific slot depths and jaw heights perfectly.
Our inventory is built to withstand the rigorous daily demands of heavy metal-shaving environments. For traditional milling, drilling, and layout setups, standard steel parallels or heavy-duty machine shop parallels provide the rock-solid foundation needed to keep your part completely level under heavy cutting forces. If you are handling complex jobs with minimal clamping surfaces, employing specialized thin parallels allows you to maximize your vise jaw grip without sacrificing vertical clearance. For fast, repeatable production runs, incorporating a matched set of vise parallels or parallels for milling lets your operators drop parts in and out with total confidence.
From a pocket-friendly machinist parallels set to ultra-durable hardened parallels designed to resist scratching on abrasive cast-iron beds, we have the hardware your workspace requires. We proudly partner with world-renowned metrology and workholding manufacturers, including SPI (Swiss Precision Instruments), Suburban Tool Inc.- Taft Peirce Metrology, and Value Collection, ensuring your investment in precision parallels and milling parallels delivers lifetime geometric truth.
Explore our entire Precision Measuring Tools catalog to source the world-class calibration gear your team relies on.
Precision Setups: Modern Shop Trends Across the USA
While automated scanning probes and modern software continue to advance throughout machine shops across the USA, the immediate, reliable utility of physical parallels remains the backbone of fast, accurate workholding.
- Four-Sided Precision Grinding: A major trend across the manufacturing sector is utilizing precision parallels that are meticulously ground on all four edges, allowing operators to use them interchangeably on their sides or faces.
- Through-Hole Weight Reduction: Modern machinist parallels often incorporate precision-drilled center holes, making them significantly easier to handle and adjust within deep vise pockets.
- High-Hardness Alloy Treatments: Production facilities are prioritizing hardened parallels rated up to 60 RC to prevent tiny metal shavings from embedding into the reference faces.
- Compact 1/8-Inch Profiles: Industrial toolrooms increasingly favor thin parallels because they provide superb knife-edge clearance when chamfering or deburring thin sheet stock.
- Enclosed Workbench Racks: Workshops are opting for comprehensive parallels for milling kits organized in vertical, chip-resistant storage racks to shield the ground edges from toolroom wear and tear.
Secure Your Workpiece Foundation: The Penn Tool Co. Difference
An unverified part setup inevitably leads to tapered cuts, out-of-tolerance dimensions, and shattered end mills. Outfitting your machining cells with a dependable parallel set or professional steel parallels from Penn Tool Co. ensures your production team works with total geometric certainty. Thanks to our 50-plus years of toolroom expertise, we supply the high-value solutions that protect your parts and maximize your shop’s daily efficiency.
