Precision non-optical glass tubes, sensor pedestals, ring-laser gyro blocks, rods, spacers, masks, tooling, and fixtures where geometry matters more than imaging.
Swiss turning, CNC milling, sawing, dicing, waterjet cutting, grinding, lapping, polishing, fire polishing, and thin-film metallization are coordinated around the finished interface. Send the print with the controlling face or edge identified, and the technical team reviews it for manufacturability before quoting — free of charge on a new design.
These parts do not form an image. They locate, seal, space, guide, carry pressure, or establish a reference inside the assembly.
Four component families where the tolerance lives on a face, an edge, or a bore — and the glass is structural rather than imaging.
High-volume precision bases with controlled flatness and edge condition for pressure-sensor and transducer assemblies, manufactured in the hundreds of thousands per year.
Face flatness to .000004″ with a .004″ edge chip tolerance
Length-controlled tubes with polished or fire-polished ends for aerospace airspeed indicators and altimeters, automotive sensors, and medical devices.
Ends polished better than .000004″ flat, at volumes approaching 500,000 per year
Complex technical glass geometry for defense and aerospace guidance systems, built to withstand both high-altitude and severe surface conditions.
Repeatable glass geometry used for tooling, spacing, masking, and alignment, including custom thin-film metallization applied where the assembly needs it.
A global laser and sensor OEM needed a glass component manufacturer that could control parallelism to the arc-second quality level on both the outer and the inner diameter of large glass tubes, while holding a surface quality good enough that the transmitted laser spot size was not affected. IRD ran detailed consultations to understand how the component was used and what the customer actually expected of it, developed custom machinery and dedicated floor space to the project, and put the process controls inside the manufacturing cell so every specification was met on every part rather than sorted for at the end. The result was a twenty-year relationship, multiple supplier-of-the-year awards, and sole-source status that held until the customer's laser system was obsoleted by newer technology.
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A flatness figure in the millionths only means something if it survives volume. These are the controls that let IRD hold sensor-grade geometry at production quantities.
Precision tubes are held to tight length tolerances, polished on the ends to better than .000004 inch flat, fire polished, and held to a tight scratch and dig tolerance. Fire polishing is a separate operation on separate equipment, not a by-product of the grind.
Five fire polishers in the published equipment listComputer vision systems have historically struggled with glass, because the system has to decide whether a defect sits on the front or back plane, cope with the radius distorting apparent defect size, handle reflection, and do it without scratching the part. IRD's system picks individual tubes from a stack, inspects sixteen discrete criteria on both ends and the entire circumference, and packages them — at under seven seconds per part. It has been in production since 2017.
Most automation shops turned the project down before one took it onSwiss turning machines, CNC mills, saws, dicing machines, and waterjets each cover geometry the others cannot. Choosing the route at design review is what keeps dimensional tolerance and edge condition from fighting each other later.
Custom-designed thin-film metallization is applied to tubes and other technical glass where the assembly requires it, and the material and coating are matched to the thermal expansion and durability requirements of the application rather than added at the end.
Production geometry can be both precise and high volume when the process is designed around the controlling faces and edges.
| Attribute | Typical | Best case | Application note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Face flatness | Print-defined | .000004″ | Sensor pedestals and precision tube ends |
| Edge chip | Controlled | .004″ | High-volume pedestal production |
| Machining | ±.005″ | ±.0001″ | Tubes, blocks, pedestals, and fixtures |
| Production scale | Prototype to volume | ~500,000 / year | Process- and geometry-dependent annual quantities |
These are IRD's published process capability figures on specific component families, not a guarantee for a given print. The .000004 inch flatness and .004 inch edge chip figures belong to sensor mounts and polished tube ends; the volume figures belong to programs whose process and inspection were developed for that rate. Material, geometry, and inspection method all move them, and every feature is quoted individually.
A dedicated cell owns the part from raw-material order through machining, finishing, inspection, and packaging. That is what allows sensor pedestals and tubes to run from prototype into hundreds of thousands per year with the inspection plan built around the controlling geometry rather than bolted on afterwards.
The IRD AdvantageUse these lists to frame the first review. The drawing, environment, performance requirement, inspection method, and volume determine the final route.
A web page is hard to attach to a review packet. These are IRD's own published technical documents on the questions this page raises.
Why automated optical inspection was so hard to apply to glass, what the system had to do — sixteen criteria on both ends and the full circumference in under seven seconds — and how the project got built.
ArticleTechnical articleHow the tube inspection process was developed and validated, and what repeatable inspection is worth on a component whose failure mode is invisible on arrival.
ArticleTechnical articleThe Sagnac-effect principle behind ring laser gyros and the parts IRD supplies into them — the precision ceramic-glass bodies, the drilled precision holes, and the super-polished laser mirrors.
ArticleThe finished component often crosses product categories. These pages cover the nearest materials, processes, and program contexts.
Send the print with the controlling face, edge, or bore identified, the flatness and chip tolerances, end condition, length tolerance, any metallization or coating, annual volume, and the inspection evidence that has to travel with the parts. For a new design, the technical team runs a no-cost Design for Manufacturability review before quoting, then estimates prototype and production volumes separately.
Or call 320.693.7217. If the program needs per-piece inspection evidence at volume, say so — that decides the inspection route, not the machining one.