More Shops Take the ‘Through-Way’ for Coolant Applications May 30, 2018 If John Winter of toolmaker Sandvik Coromant (Fair Lawn, NJ) were to start his own machine shop, all of his machines would be equipped for through-spindle coolant (TSC).
CMMs Grow Their Niche August 30, 2018 For CMMs, the good times continue to roll. “One of the surprising things that has happened in just the last three to four years is the sheer volume of CMMs that we are shipping,” said Angus Taylor, president of Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, North America (North Kingstown, RI). “The market seems to be really exploding.”
Micro Cutting Tool Options Expand as Applications Increase May 2, 2018 Solid-carbide micro cutting tools about the diameter of human hair or smaller—some producing parts visible only under a microscope—are making a huge impact on manufacturing highly advanced electronics, automotive and aerospace fuel injection systems, and medical instruments and implants.
Metrology Certifications in the Knowledge Age May 7, 2018 Technology is changing ever more rapidly. Sometimes this means topics learned in engineering or technical school become obsolete. Whole new fields emerge within a few years, so that even those with freshly minted educations suddenly find themselves faced with new challenges.
Liquid Nitrogen an Alternative to Traditional Coolants May 30, 2018 Cryogenics offer an alternative to traditional liquid coolants when conventional cooling methods can’t or don’t do the job well enough.
Workholding Solutions to Reduce Costs, Increase Throughput April 24, 2018 At the Nirvana Machine Shop on planet Perfection, every workpiece is clamped to a custom-built fixture mounted on a dedicated machine tool. Each workpiece is dimensionally identical to the one before and the one after. All the fixtures are totally automatic—instantly positioning, clamping, machining, inspecting, and releasing the part with the ultimate precision.
Replaceable Tip Drills Offer Versatile Design Improvements April 24, 2018 Since their introduction about 20 years ago, replaceable-tip drills have become increasingly accurate and cost-effective alternatives to solid carbide units.
Big, Heavy, Awkward Parts Need Workholding, Too April 23, 2018 If you’ve ever seen industrial wind turbine components on the back of a flatbed truck rolling down the highway, you have a good idea of what a large, heavy, difficult-to-handle workpiece is. For example, with a single blade on the GE 1.5 mW turbine being almost as long as a football field, the entire blade assembly weighs about the same as 36 small cars.
The Basics of Live Tooling April 27, 2018 Live Tooling, as the name implies, is specifically driven by the CNC control and the turret of various spindle and powered sub-spindle configurations on CNC lathes to perform various operations while the workpiece remains in orientation to the main spindle.
New Line of Hydraulic Chuck Extensions Targets Long-Reach Applications March 2, 2018 Celebrating its 80th year, Kennametal, the Latrobe, (PA), tooling manufacturer, says it has solved the age-long problem of tool stability when drilling in deep cavities, alongside tall shoulders, and past bulky fixtures. Reaching deep inside a workpiece to drill holes can be challenging.
