In article ,
Koz wrote:

Any thoughts on a better procedure to use off the shelf dowel pins (or
whatever) and get the cycle strength we need? Other ideas? I'm just
trying to "break out of the box" here in my thinking. Labor needs to be
in the range of a couple of bucks per end.

Sticking with your "no foreign metals, glue, etc." foodservice
requirement:

Try a slightly different press fit to see if that solves your stress
problem?

If the cracks (on the press-fits) are coming at the bottom of the hole,
a hole with rounder bottom corners might not crack? (I don't think you
described the failure in enough detail for this to be anything but a
WAG). Think finishing the bottom of the hole with a ball-end mill to
reduce stress concentration, if that's what's happening. Presumably a
drill could be ground to do something like that directly.

Grind divots or a tapered flat on the dowel pin (part that will be
inside the CRS) and squish the CRS into them/it with a hydraulic press.
If using a tapered flat, be sure that the end of it is radiused to
reduce stress concentrations. Hemispherical divots might be better for
that reason. This assumes that the CRS need not be perfectly round near
the end. I'm guessing that the outer part of the pin needs to be round,
so the fully-flatted pins that are available off the shelf probably
would not work?