# Top Secret Pictures – How Rupes Bigfoot Polishers are made!



## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

*Top Secret Pictures - How Rupes Bigfoot Polishers are made! *

As far as I know, in the history of Rupes, _*no one*_ has ever been given permission to take pictures inside the Rupes manufacturing facilities.

*Note this picture...*










*And in case you missed it, I've cropped out the pertinent part....*










To be clear, I was only allowed to take pictures in about 1/3 of their facilities. The other 2/3 are completely restricted from cameras.

One portion of these other two areas I was given a tour of and all I can say is what I saw was _*very impressive*_. There was another area that is 100% restricted to anyone without company credentials to enter and that's perfectly okay as I'm very thankful for their gracious permission to take pictures in the manufacturing portion of their plant.

I'd like to thank *Presidente Guido Valentini* and all of the rest of the staff at Rupes for their trust in both myself and Jason and we respect that trust and our relationship and the only pictures I will post are the pictures I was given permission to take and share at this time.

*Here you can see a line of polisher heads with motors being installed.*




























*Here's polisher bodies attached to the heads of polisher units.*










*Here you can see the drive gear for the head gears as well as the rear bearing installed.*










*In this picture you can see the drive assembly, drive assembly housing and backing plates have been installed.*










*Close-up pictures of the drive gears. These are stainless steel, precision ground and heat treated for long life and quiet performance.*










*Rupes invented and manufactures their own electric motors which are famous for their efficiency.*










*Polisher bodies with wiring and electrical controls installed.*










*Empty tool bodies ready for assembly....*









*Assembled tool bodies with lubrication grease being added to the drive assembly housing.*










*Counterweight assemblies with bearings installed...*










*These are machining marks for balancing purposes which equates to long life and low vibration under operation.*










*Coil windings ready to be assembled to tool bodies*









*Every component is made and assembled at the Rupes factory.*









*There are multiple machining processes on assembly lines and each process has redundant quality control measures in place to ensure exact tolerances and specifications are maintained.*


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## sprocketser (Aug 4, 2012)

Thanx for sharing your experience at Rupes ! Must have been a blast !


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## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

_Continued...._












































































































































































These pictures represent just a portion of their manufacturing facilities, there are different assembly lines for the various tools Rupes manufactures. I think the above pictures will give you a good idea as to the attention to quality and process control that goes into the production of all Rupes tools and removes any doubt that Rupes manufactures their own tools in-house.

Very impressive.

:thumb:


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## DJ X-Ray (Sep 2, 2012)

Doesn't really surprise me, alot of factories don't allow photography.


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## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

DJ X-Ray said:


> Doesn't really surprise me, alot of factories don't allow photography.


Guess once in a while there's an exception to the rule.

:thumb:


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## Shining (Jan 6, 2014)

This is amazing, and many thanks to those who allowed this. Surely puts a lot of confidence to the one who are putting their money on this as the next purchase


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## samm (May 19, 2006)

I have the LR21, reassuringly expensive.


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## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

samm said:


> I have the LR21, reassuringly expensive.


Quality never costs money it makes money....

:thumb:


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