Slide and Mounting Equipment Applications

Products

GSF's products include four types of telescopic slide as well as its range of linear rail products, GSF's award winning slide and tilt system, and a superb range of high strength supertuff nylon tool mount and strapping products. Ladder Gantries and handle and locking mechanisms (slide and tilt and straight slide-out drawers) for fire vehicles, as well as lock-in/lock-out drawer slides are all new additions to the range.

Much of GSF's range is designed for use on vehicle based applications, including vehicles operating in the most challenging environments: fire and rescue, other emergency services, defence and homeland security. Products have to be designed to withstand high levels of shock and vibration with, for example, some tool mount products being proven to hold tools securely in 80G impact tests.

Whether you are seeking components for such a challenging application, or simply want to use the best that is available for your RV or offroader, or for some other use around the home or office, you know that you will be getting the best that is available from GSF.

To BUY products online now, visit our e-commerce website at www.gsf-promounts.com

Defence

In the defence environment it is critical that all sliding components offer as a primary function a secure and reliable interface between vehicle and equipment even when under conditions of extreme shock load due to sudden acceleration. It is expected that these loadings may be applied singularly or simultaniously through any axis normally when the slides are in the closed and locked position. Secondly, following further longer term exposure to lower level shock and contiuous vibration it is expected that our slide should allow safe and easy withdrawl of the equipent.

Specific consideration of surface treatments and materials used in slide construction will ensure that our products will continue working as designed irrespestive of high shock and vibration, and adverse environmental conditions such as high levels of dust and water including sea water.

Photograph by: Mez Merrill; Crown Copyright/MOD, image from www.photos.mod.uk.

Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office

Fire
Fire engines now carry every type of equipment and material with the need that the equipment is rapidly and safely accessible.

In this environment GSF's products come into their own, providing a wide range of solutions from the conventional telescopic slide mounted storage tray or rack (full or over extension) to GSF's innovative and low weight slide and tilt mechanism.

Our Slides must be highly reliable and easy to maintain, primarily providing a safe and secure interface between the vehicle and load while enabling safe and easy access. The design selection process must consider products that are based on rugged designs that can operate under dynamic load conditions with resistance to corrosion, and suitable for the natural variations of manual handling found in stressful emergency operations and deployment.  End-stops must also be sufficiently robust, generally necessitating a higher specification of slide.

Correct selection and specification of the slide system will ensure maximisation of the space inside the storage bay, and also help to reduce the overall weight of the vehicle itself.

It is part of GSF's expertise to specify the correct slide for the application and indeed to design and deliver complete storage system sub-assemblies.

Electronics

Depending on the size of the electronic system, the telescopic slide must deliver a controlled and smooth movement with minimal deflection at a cost effective price. Lock-in and Lock-out are generally useful features for this type of application.

In a refit of a 19" rack application, space constraints can determine new slide selection - the breadth of GSF's product range ensures that GSF will be able to provide a slide that matches your requirements.

Special Vehicles
Each application is often unique and requires GSF to engage fully with the customer design team to create an innvoative and cost effective solution. GSF has a very broad knowledge of the factors that must be taken into account when designing slide-based systems, including health and safety considerations for staff operating the sliding system as well as members of the public when using the facility.

Trains

The need for slide systems to be able to withstand shock and vibration is particularly significant within trains, as well as the ability to withstand high dynamic loads.

For train doors (internal and external) high levels of mechanical durability are necessary to withstand the very high repetitions, and accordingly slides produced from cold-drawn steel are to be preferred.  These will generally be specified with our surface-hardening finishes.

Components for supporting battery rafts have to be heavy-duty, but are also likely to be exposed to the corrosive atmosphere inevitably generated by battery systems.

GSF has the expertise to help the customer select and specify the most appropriate corrosion resistant finishes.

Machine Building

In this market segment it is paramount that your supplier quickly understands your requirement and is able to provide slides and sub-assemblies, probably in lower quantities, that are matched to your needs, and which enhance the design and perfomance of your machine. GSF offer a wide range of telescopic and linear slide products that are available on an immediate delivery basis, competitively priced with no minimum order requirments.

Our sales team are happy to help you find interchangable parts for spares and repair situations so please feel free to contact us directly or use our product selector to start your selection process.

The breadth of GSF's product range gives it an unparalled advantage when helping customers to engineer solutions to linear movement problems including vertical movement, curved slides, food-safe equipment, and ultra high precision both for telescopic slides and linear rails.

Offshore/Civil Marine

In the marine environment, vessels have to be designed to withstand extreme wave and wind action which will inevitably be transmitted to every component within the vessel.

Even as wind and sea can impose substantial dynamic loads on all components, vibration from the vessel's engines will also permeate.  GSF's range of cold drawn steel and machined stainless steel slides generally perform significantly better in this environment than slides produced using the cold-rolled process: slide beams produced by cold rolling tend to be unable to retain their overall shape, particularly when under load and subject to continuous vibration.  As the profile "opens" it loses rigidity exacerbating the progressive slide failure.

GSF is also able to specifiy an extensive variety of corrosion resistant and surface hardening finishes, as well as safe and reliable lock-in and lock-out mechanisms to account for the conditions likely to apply to your application.

Motor Manufacturing Plant

GSF can offer highly engineered sliding products with precision movement and durability for repetitious automatic or robotically operated lines. We also have a wide variety of products better suited for use in manually operated systems such as line side delivery stillages.

Our sales team are happy to help you find interchangable parts for spares and repair situations so please feel free to contact us directly or use our product selctor to start your selection process.

The breadth of GSF's product range gives it an unparalled advantage when helping customers to engineer solutions to linear movement problems including vertical movement, curved slides, and food-safe equipment.

 

 

 

Banking Equipment
Sliding components used within this market segment are generally of a lighter duty construction, but must deliver cost effective precision movement and reliability.

Industrial Storage

Industrial storage applications will typically require rugged slide designs suitable for operation by non-technical personnel and being foregiving to the varying nature of the operational forces encountered in manual handling situations.  Key criteria generally include specifying slide systems that allow an operator to move heavy loads safely with minimal operational force. End-stops must also be sufficiently robust to protect the equipent and operator from damage or injury.

GSF's product range and experience at dealing with a vast variety of applications will enable us to quickly understand your requirements and help you specify a product that meets your performance criteria.

 

Slide and Tilt
GSF is at the forefront of the development of slide and tilt systems, which enable drawers to tilt safely downwards towards the user, within health and Safety requirements.  With the ability to produce specialist heavy duty systems, we have developed a particularly strong reputation with the Defence and Fire industries as consultants from concept through to delivery.

Linear

Linear Slides generally comprise a single metal rail with one or more carriers mounted inside the rail to provide a smooth linear motion.  These components are what are usually used to mount sliding doors, covers and machine guards.

Examples of applications would include sliding compartment doors on trains and vehicles or storage lockers with sliding doors on vessels and in most cases a top and bottom rail will be fitted.  Each rail can be fitted with 2 or more carriers to further distribute the load.

GSF offers rail in a wide range of sizes designed to carry from a few kilograms up large profile rails able to carry many hundreds of kilograms.

The rail itself is generally made from work-hardened cold drawn steel (some smaller profiles are also available in aluminium).

Recirculating ball beariing carriers provide a smooth and reliable linear motion within the rail and for most rails in the range a choice of size of carrier is also available.  The fixing points on the carriers are pre-tapped.

The maximum length for a single piece of rail is 3m, but can be supplied ready adapted for end-to end connection for longer runs.  The design of the rail profiles allow the rail to to operate when mounted flat, although this does reduce load carrying capacity.