Spike, a Calgary Zoo elephant, gets a helping hand—and new tusk caps— from the metalworking industry
In late 2008 Spike, a 12,000 lb bull elephant at the Calgary Zoo, became entangled in a watering machine. While struggling to free himself, the impatient pachyderm broke his right tusk. It snapped off above a stainless steel cap, one of two that had been placed on Spike’s tusks six years prior.
The accident left Spike “a little lopsided,” says Brad Donaldson, dean of the school of manufacturing and automation at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary.
Of greater concern was the threat of infection. Worried that the broken tusk might become abscessed and endanger Spike’s health, Calgary Zoo staff decided that a new dental cap was in order. For the sake of symmetry and balance, it was further decided to put new caps on both tusks, even though only one was broken.
Spike got his original set of caps in July 2002 after breaking his left tusk while rough-housing with a tire (his favourite play-toy). At the time, SAIT and other Alberta-area companies collaborated to create stainless steel tusk caps for the elephant. Following the second accident, the zoo again turned to SAIT Polytechnic.
A team led by SAIT was put together, to apply their diverse talents to the pachyderm problem. Everyone involved understood this was a volunteer effort; neither SAIT nor any of the companies they approached were paid for their labour or materials.
Machining a tusk cap with Sandvik Coromant tools in Lab Machine Work's Calgary shop.
Local representatives from Florida-based Faro Technologies went to the zoo to make a surface scan of Spike’s tusks. Data gleaned from the scans was used to design the caps, a chore handled by SAIT using SolidWorks 3D CAD software. PolyWorks 3D metrology software (made by Quebec City-based firm, InnovMetric) was also employed to create computer-generated models of the caps.
The collaborative nature of this effort was further complicated by the unusual characteristics of the objects under construction.
“Because of the shape of the tusk, it’s got a bit of twisting and curving to it … you can’t model it very easily,” notes Donaldson.
SAIT also made wooden prototypes of the replacement caps. These prototypes were fitted on Spike, to make sure designers had the right dimensions.
When it came to machining the actual replacement caps, SAIT tapped Lab Machine Works, of Calgary. A small (1500 sq ft) CNC shop, Lab had helped make Spike’s original tusk caps back in 2002. A one-man operation run by former SAIT instructor Mike Desjardins, Lab’s equipment consists of a pair of Haas CNC machines. The company is licensed to use Mastercam CAD/CAM software and primarily does work in the energy sector.
For the Spike project, Alberta representatives from Sandvik Coromant donated a CoroMill 390 endmill and CoroMill 216F ball nose endmill for Desjardins to use at his shop. In addition, he received two huge pieces of grade 316 stainless steel courtesy of Encore Metals of Edmonton—one for each tusk cap. Said pieces weighed over 300 lb apiece.
Desjardins had his work cut out for him: “One of the differences with this set of tusks from the first set was that this set are contoured … they are more realistic tusks than what Spike had before. Spike’s first tusks were straight tusks,” says Jim Cordoviz, Edmonton-based Alberta Team Leader for Sandvik Coromant.
