EDM vs. Milling In Die／Mold Machining

Oil Well Survey Instrument (OWSI) machines “practically anything,” according to owner Mike Holden. The ISO 9001:2015 shop has 50 employees and 38,000 square feet of manufacturing space. In keeping with its name, the company sees a lot work from the oil and gas industry, but Holden notes that “safety valves are a big part of our business” as well. OWSI therefore needs to work with tough materials like duplex and super-duplex steels, as well as stainless, titanium and nickel-based alloys. The company uses a wide array of machines, with Okumas alongside wire EDM equipment, grinders, welders, manual mills and lathes, an Eldorado gun drill and around dozen Davenports and other automatic screw machines. This variety of machines enables OWSI to tackle parts up to 30 inches in diameter and 100 inches in length, and down to parts the size of an eyeglass screw.

One recent part had the potential to cause troubles, however. Known as a ring hinge, this part is found in assemblies used to keep sand out of downhole oil drilling operations. Holden and his team took an order to drill more than 1,000 of the 316L stainless steel parts, each with ten 0.35-inch (8.9 mm) diameter holes.

“With that much drilling to do, I was looking for anything we could do to make it go faster,” Holden says. “That’s when I called Greg White, our local Ceratizit representative.”

OWSI planned to use its Haas UMC 750SS five-axis machining center to produce the ring hinges. As mentioned, it was a production run, so Holden wanted to do whatever he could to reduce cycle time. Sales engineer Greg White of Ceratizit USA was all too glad to propose the WTX-HFDS line of drills.

The WTX-HFDS line is Ceratizit’s latest foray into high-precision holemaking. According to the company, it is the first four-flute, solid carbide drill on the market able to produce H7 or better hole quality and positioning accuracy of 0.001 inch (0.03 mm). It boasts four spiral coolant holes, pyramid-shaped point thinning and a patented “Dragonskin” TiAlN nanolayer coating.

White says he “sent over two drills and Mike called me back later that week. ‘Get in here when you get a chance. This thing makes holes so WCMT Insert fast that I can't even turn my back and the part's nearly done.’”

Before the WTX-HFDS, OWSI used a two-flute solid carbide drill, held in an ER-32 toolholder. Tool life “wasn’t bad,” Holden says, but OWSI was limited to a feedrate of 9 inches per minute at 2300 RPM. The Haas UMC 750SS is equipped with a high-pressure coolant pump, which at this diameter was pushing around 500 PSI. Under different circumstances, this could be fine, but because of the machine's trunnion design and how the part was situated on the table, the cutting forces were somewhat off-center, lowering hole quality.

Aside from changing to the WTX-HFDS drill, White recommended OWSI increase the feedrate four-fold, to 36 inches per minute. Doing so reduced cycle times by 3.5 minutes per part Shoulder Milling Inserts while producing more than 900 holes between drill sharpenings (a slight improvement) and saving OWSI nearly $6 per part.

The improved hole quality — Holden notes the parts held ±0.001 inch consistently — enabled OWSI to eliminate a secondary operation, further increasing profitability. Holden quickly found himself proselytizing the WTX-HFDS and its Dragonskin coating.

“I put it right up there with coated carbides, high feed mills, and through-the-tool coolant,” Holden says. “You can tell just by listening to it that the drill is very balanced and the cutting forces quite low. And there are none of those little fish-eyes and circles around the top of the hole, so you know it's not wandering at all when it starts the hole. Chip control is also much better, which was a big deal to us.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: carbide Insert

Oil Well Survey Instrument (OWSI) machines “practically anything,” according to owner Mike Holden. The ISO 9001:2015 shop has 50 employees and 38,000 square feet of manufacturing space. In keeping with its name, the company sees a lot work from the oil and gas industry, but Holden notes that “safety valves are a big part of our business” as well. OWSI therefore needs to work with tough materials like duplex and super-duplex steels, as well as stainless, titanium and nickel-based alloys. The company uses a wide array of machines, with Okumas alongside wire EDM equipment, grinders, welders, manual mills and lathes, an Eldorado gun drill and around dozen Davenports and other automatic screw machines. This variety of machines enables OWSI to tackle parts up to 30 inches in diameter and 100 inches in length, and down to parts the size of an eyeglass screw.

One recent part had the potential to cause troubles, however. Known as a ring hinge, this part is found in assemblies used to keep sand out of downhole oil drilling operations. Holden and his team took an order to drill more than 1,000 of the 316L stainless steel parts, each with ten 0.35-inch (8.9 mm) diameter holes.

“With that much drilling to do, I was looking for anything we could do to make it go faster,” Holden says. “That’s when I called Greg White, our local Ceratizit representative.”

OWSI planned to use its Haas UMC 750SS five-axis machining center to produce the ring hinges. As mentioned, it was a production run, so Holden wanted to do whatever he could to reduce cycle time. Sales engineer Greg White of Ceratizit USA was all too glad to propose the WTX-HFDS line of drills.

The WTX-HFDS line is Ceratizit’s latest foray into high-precision holemaking. According to the company, it is the first four-flute, solid carbide drill on the market able to produce H7 or better hole quality and positioning accuracy of 0.001 inch (0.03 mm). It boasts four spiral coolant holes, pyramid-shaped point thinning and a patented “Dragonskin” TiAlN nanolayer coating.

White says he “sent over two drills and Mike called me back later that week. ‘Get in here when you get a chance. This thing makes holes so WCMT Insert fast that I can't even turn my back and the part's nearly done.’”

Before the WTX-HFDS, OWSI used a two-flute solid carbide drill, held in an ER-32 toolholder. Tool life “wasn’t bad,” Holden says, but OWSI was limited to a feedrate of 9 inches per minute at 2300 RPM. The Haas UMC 750SS is equipped with a high-pressure coolant pump, which at this diameter was pushing around 500 PSI. Under different circumstances, this could be fine, but because of the machine's trunnion design and how the part was situated on the table, the cutting forces were somewhat off-center, lowering hole quality.

Aside from changing to the WTX-HFDS drill, White recommended OWSI increase the feedrate four-fold, to 36 inches per minute. Doing so reduced cycle times by 3.5 minutes per part Shoulder Milling Inserts while producing more than 900 holes between drill sharpenings (a slight improvement) and saving OWSI nearly $6 per part.

The improved hole quality — Holden notes the parts held ±0.001 inch consistently — enabled OWSI to eliminate a secondary operation, further increasing profitability. Holden quickly found himself proselytizing the WTX-HFDS and its Dragonskin coating.

“I put it right up there with coated carbides, high feed mills, and through-the-tool coolant,” Holden says. “You can tell just by listening to it that the drill is very balanced and the cutting forces quite low. And there are none of those little fish-eyes and circles around the top of the hole, so you know it's not wandering at all when it starts the hole. Chip control is also much better, which was a big deal to us.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: carbide Insert

A Tool Turret Tailored For The Task (Of Multitasking)

Emuge Corp. (West Boylston, Massachusetts) has donated hundreds of high-performance taps, end mills and other rotary cutting tools to Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) of Worcester, Massachusetts. The tool donation, valued at more than $100,000, will be used to support the college’s new machining technology program.

QCC is expanding and updating its Manufacturing Technology Center, a multi-million dollar facility housing a range of technological equipment on its main Worcester campus. This center provides students with hands-on learning experiences with CNC machining centers, metrology equipment and an array of tools and software. The Manufacturing Technology Center is designed to complement the college’s STEM programming in the soon-to-be-opened QuEST Center (Quinsigamond Engineering, Science and Technology Center).

“We are thrilled to have received this very generous donation of tools from Emuge,” says Dr. Gail Carberry, president of QCC. “We are especially SNMG Insert pleased that Emuge reached out to us regarding the donation at a time when we are actively building and implementing expanded programming in manufacturing and engineering technologies.” She adds, “The tools will be a huge plus for the program.”

“We are pleased to support QCC’s manufacturing education program by collaborating with not only tool donations, but also offering our knowledge and expertise in today’s advanced precision manufacturing sectors such as aerospace, defense, medical and automotive,” says Bob Hellinger, president of Emuge. The company has a technology center near the school. He adds, “Hopefully we can also offer recruitment opportunities wherever possible for QCC students, especially as we expand our manufacturing capabilities in our West Boylston facility. APKT Insert Keeping an eye on our future, it is certainly in our interest to acquire skilled manufacturing talent.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: indexable drill bit

Emuge Corp. (West Boylston, Massachusetts) has donated hundreds of high-performance taps, end mills and other rotary cutting tools to Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) of Worcester, Massachusetts. The tool donation, valued at more than $100,000, will be used to support the college’s new machining technology program.

QCC is expanding and updating its Manufacturing Technology Center, a multi-million dollar facility housing a range of technological equipment on its main Worcester campus. This center provides students with hands-on learning experiences with CNC machining centers, metrology equipment and an array of tools and software. The Manufacturing Technology Center is designed to complement the college’s STEM programming in the soon-to-be-opened QuEST Center (Quinsigamond Engineering, Science and Technology Center).

“We are thrilled to have received this very generous donation of tools from Emuge,” says Dr. Gail Carberry, president of QCC. “We are especially SNMG Insert pleased that Emuge reached out to us regarding the donation at a time when we are actively building and implementing expanded programming in manufacturing and engineering technologies.” She adds, “The tools will be a huge plus for the program.”

“We are pleased to support QCC’s manufacturing education program by collaborating with not only tool donations, but also offering our knowledge and expertise in today’s advanced precision manufacturing sectors such as aerospace, defense, medical and automotive,” says Bob Hellinger, president of Emuge. The company has a technology center near the school. He adds, “Hopefully we can also offer recruitment opportunities wherever possible for QCC students, especially as we expand our manufacturing capabilities in our West Boylston facility. APKT Insert Keeping an eye on our future, it is certainly in our interest to acquire skilled manufacturing talent.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: indexable drill bit

Xometry Launches E Commerce Website for Tools, Supplies

Hip and knee joint replacements, heart valves and products related to trauma injuries, such as locking compression plates, are among the products for which Harvey Tool Company, Inc.’s precision carbide tooling are used to produce. Other applications include spinal components, including vertical expandable prosthetic titanium ribs, and Cranio-maxillofacial products, such as flap fix cranial clamps. The aforementioned RCMX Insert components are typically tungsten carbide inserts fashioned from materials ranging from composites to stainless steels and titanium.

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The carbide tooling offered by the company is involved in carrying out machining applications, such as drilling, milling, chamfering, boring and corner rounding. A variety of coatings, from TiAlN to diamond amorphous and CVD diamond, are available for all tools depending on materials to be machined.

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The Cemented Carbide Blog: Cemented Carbide Inserts

Hip and knee joint replacements, heart valves and products related to trauma injuries, such as locking compression plates, are among the products for which Harvey Tool Company, Inc.’s precision carbide tooling are used to produce. Other applications include spinal components, including vertical expandable prosthetic titanium ribs, and Cranio-maxillofacial products, such as flap fix cranial clamps. The aforementioned RCMX Insert components are typically tungsten carbide inserts fashioned from materials ranging from composites to stainless steels and titanium.

?

The carbide tooling offered by the company is involved in carrying out machining applications, such as drilling, milling, chamfering, boring and corner rounding. A variety of coatings, from TiAlN to diamond amorphous and CVD diamond, are available for all tools depending on materials to be machined.

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The Cemented Carbide Blog: Cemented Carbide Inserts

VMC For Precision Milled Part Challenges

V-tec veined rotary cutting tools, including helical end mills and drills, are PCD-coated using a high-pressure and high-temperature process that allows polycrystalline diamond (PCD) to be directly sintered into the veins that form complex geometric shapes. While PCD Cutting Carbide Inserts is typically only available in flat segments, this process allows the end mills and drills to be offered in solid-body helical geometries that are free of braze joints?that may be prone to failure, making it possible to machine highly abrasive materials, the company says. Non-ferrous application materials include composites, aluminum alloys, copper alloys, metal matrix composites, ceramics, graphites, carbides, friction materials, green ceramics and magnesium. ? According to the company, the advantages Helical Milling Inserts of the helical end mills and drills include providing a broader application range, lower production costs, improved productivity and workpiece quality, improved tool life, lower machine setup costs and reduced inventory quantities. Cutting edge sharpness and retention are said to improve surface finishes, while the helical geometry of the tools are said to lower tool forces and support better chip evacuation. The end mills and drills are designed with increased thermal conductivity and lower coefficient of friction to result in less heat buildup and adhesion.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: http://arthuredwi.mee.nu/

V-tec veined rotary cutting tools, including helical end mills and drills, are PCD-coated using a high-pressure and high-temperature process that allows polycrystalline diamond (PCD) to be directly sintered into the veins that form complex geometric shapes. While PCD Cutting Carbide Inserts is typically only available in flat segments, this process allows the end mills and drills to be offered in solid-body helical geometries that are free of braze joints?that may be prone to failure, making it possible to machine highly abrasive materials, the company says. Non-ferrous application materials include composites, aluminum alloys, copper alloys, metal matrix composites, ceramics, graphites, carbides, friction materials, green ceramics and magnesium. ? According to the company, the advantages Helical Milling Inserts of the helical end mills and drills include providing a broader application range, lower production costs, improved productivity and workpiece quality, improved tool life, lower machine setup costs and reduced inventory quantities. Cutting edge sharpness and retention are said to improve surface finishes, while the helical geometry of the tools are said to lower tool forces and support better chip evacuation. The end mills and drills are designed with increased thermal conductivity and lower coefficient of friction to result in less heat buildup and adhesion.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: http://arthuredwi.mee.nu/

External Threading Toolholder Directs Coolant to the Cutting Edge

Machining very large cast iron parts often requires large amounts of material removal using wide cuts and deep bores, so the speeds seldom exceed 5,000 rpm. The need in this setup is not faster speeds, but a tough spindle that stays rigid while it attacks wide areas of hard metal.

Bechert Brothers Manufacturing of Forestville, Connecticut, is a 35-person, three-shift machining operation founded in 1977 by Jim Bechert, father of James and Bill Bechert who now handle day-to-day operations. Bechert Brothers specializes in machining these high precision cast iron and steel parts. Examples are rotary screw compressor housings of cast iron for HVAC systems that weigh 200 to 1,000 pounds, steel components used in couplings for helicopter rotors and bearing housings for gas turbine engines made from investment castings of 4140 carbon alloy steel.

These are difficult parts to machine accurately and cost effectively. Getting the accuracy needed on complex parts while maintaining productive feeds and speeds takes good planning as well as the right equipment, according to James Bechert, president. Also important are quality and precision, along with the avoidance of costly downtime. Bechert Brothers decided that a way to meet all these goals was to standardize its equipment. All of the company's machines are Matsuuras, and virtually all of its toolholders are from Command Tooling (Ramsey, Minnesota), according to Mr. Bechert. "The standardization makes a big difference in our consistency Carbide Turning Inserts and repeatability. Our operators intimately know these machines, their software and the toolholder capabilities without having to deal with the vagaries of three or four different machine brands and models. The same is true with the toolholders.

"When our operators set up for one of these jobs, which involve hogging out large cavities and producing dozens of bores and tapped holes, they have the confidence of knowing, for example, that they can successfully get a ½-inch diameter cut in cast iron at 1,000 rpm without tool chatter. Because machines and toolholders have similar features, little things like setting coolant lines at the same height are easy because all the toolholders are the same length, being they are from the same manufacturer," says Mr. Bechert.

"For the same reason, the SNMG Insert toolholders tighten up consistently so the operator doesn't have to guess what's right to get good concentric gripping force on the cutting tool—something that can cause a machine shutdown in the middle of a part run if it's not right."

To machine the compressor housings, Bechert Brothers has four MAM 900H Matsuura horizontal machining systems. These are full four-axis systems with scale feedback and dual 24.8-inch square pallets; 36.2-inch by 28.3-inch by 29.9-inch X, Y, Z travels and 32-second pallet change. The machines have 590 ipm rapid traverse and 15 to 4,500 rpm oil cooled spindles.

Using an array of 40- and 50-taper Command milling, drilling and tapping toolholders plus Command's Urma modular boring tools, two and three operations are done to the housings on each pallet side prior to indexing to the next side. Originally equipped with 50-tool carousels, Mr. Bechert says his company quickly converted to the 100-tool carousel that holds a greater variety of tools because the compressor housings required many different tools to manufacture them in a single part setup.

Because the parts are large and oval-shaped (36 inches by 30 inches by 20 inches), maintaining size with correct tolerance is difficult. This is especially true for the boring operations where the Urma modular boring tools using coated carbide inserts are employed to achieve the needed ±0.0002 diameter on the wall bores. With depths of 12 to 20 inches required, Bechert utilizes the full boring system range (0.036 inch to 31 inches). This combination allows perpendicular and true position penetration of overlapping bores, which, according to Mr. Bechert, can wreak havoc on ordinary boring tools. With consistent rigidity from one toolholder to the next, he reports getting ±0.0005 true position, bore to bore, and 0.0005-inch perpendicularity to the part face.

Bores are roughed out, then semi-finished and finished. Speeds for the roughing pass are at 600 rpm with 3,500 rpm for the finishing pass. Most of the bores require a 63 micro finish with a smaller number requiring a finer 32 micro finish.

Part runs vary from 15 to 200 a month for the larger compressor housings. Generally, runs are not large, so setup time is an important consideration. Bechert Brothers maximizes runtime on all of its machines by presetting jobs off-line and operating three shifts. "Our goal is to keep those machines in the cut 24 hours a day," says Mr. Bechert. "Downtime is costly so we can't afford to have a hodgepodge of different toolholders that tighten inconsistently and cause a rigidity and chatter problem in the middle of a part run."

Quality isn't compromised with the output of the three-shift operation because the company operates a QC department. Utilizing a Zeiss 850 Carat, known for its size and precision measuring features of large aerospace parts, this department tracks every part and critical part feature to ensure repeatable quality throughout its three shifts.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: Cemented Carbide Inserts

Machining very large cast iron parts often requires large amounts of material removal using wide cuts and deep bores, so the speeds seldom exceed 5,000 rpm. The need in this setup is not faster speeds, but a tough spindle that stays rigid while it attacks wide areas of hard metal.

Bechert Brothers Manufacturing of Forestville, Connecticut, is a 35-person, three-shift machining operation founded in 1977 by Jim Bechert, father of James and Bill Bechert who now handle day-to-day operations. Bechert Brothers specializes in machining these high precision cast iron and steel parts. Examples are rotary screw compressor housings of cast iron for HVAC systems that weigh 200 to 1,000 pounds, steel components used in couplings for helicopter rotors and bearing housings for gas turbine engines made from investment castings of 4140 carbon alloy steel.

These are difficult parts to machine accurately and cost effectively. Getting the accuracy needed on complex parts while maintaining productive feeds and speeds takes good planning as well as the right equipment, according to James Bechert, president. Also important are quality and precision, along with the avoidance of costly downtime. Bechert Brothers decided that a way to meet all these goals was to standardize its equipment. All of the company's machines are Matsuuras, and virtually all of its toolholders are from Command Tooling (Ramsey, Minnesota), according to Mr. Bechert. "The standardization makes a big difference in our consistency Carbide Turning Inserts and repeatability. Our operators intimately know these machines, their software and the toolholder capabilities without having to deal with the vagaries of three or four different machine brands and models. The same is true with the toolholders.

"When our operators set up for one of these jobs, which involve hogging out large cavities and producing dozens of bores and tapped holes, they have the confidence of knowing, for example, that they can successfully get a ½-inch diameter cut in cast iron at 1,000 rpm without tool chatter. Because machines and toolholders have similar features, little things like setting coolant lines at the same height are easy because all the toolholders are the same length, being they are from the same manufacturer," says Mr. Bechert.

"For the same reason, the SNMG Insert toolholders tighten up consistently so the operator doesn't have to guess what's right to get good concentric gripping force on the cutting tool—something that can cause a machine shutdown in the middle of a part run if it's not right."

To machine the compressor housings, Bechert Brothers has four MAM 900H Matsuura horizontal machining systems. These are full four-axis systems with scale feedback and dual 24.8-inch square pallets; 36.2-inch by 28.3-inch by 29.9-inch X, Y, Z travels and 32-second pallet change. The machines have 590 ipm rapid traverse and 15 to 4,500 rpm oil cooled spindles.

Using an array of 40- and 50-taper Command milling, drilling and tapping toolholders plus Command's Urma modular boring tools, two and three operations are done to the housings on each pallet side prior to indexing to the next side. Originally equipped with 50-tool carousels, Mr. Bechert says his company quickly converted to the 100-tool carousel that holds a greater variety of tools because the compressor housings required many different tools to manufacture them in a single part setup.

Because the parts are large and oval-shaped (36 inches by 30 inches by 20 inches), maintaining size with correct tolerance is difficult. This is especially true for the boring operations where the Urma modular boring tools using coated carbide inserts are employed to achieve the needed ±0.0002 diameter on the wall bores. With depths of 12 to 20 inches required, Bechert utilizes the full boring system range (0.036 inch to 31 inches). This combination allows perpendicular and true position penetration of overlapping bores, which, according to Mr. Bechert, can wreak havoc on ordinary boring tools. With consistent rigidity from one toolholder to the next, he reports getting ±0.0005 true position, bore to bore, and 0.0005-inch perpendicularity to the part face.

Bores are roughed out, then semi-finished and finished. Speeds for the roughing pass are at 600 rpm with 3,500 rpm for the finishing pass. Most of the bores require a 63 micro finish with a smaller number requiring a finer 32 micro finish.

Part runs vary from 15 to 200 a month for the larger compressor housings. Generally, runs are not large, so setup time is an important consideration. Bechert Brothers maximizes runtime on all of its machines by presetting jobs off-line and operating three shifts. "Our goal is to keep those machines in the cut 24 hours a day," says Mr. Bechert. "Downtime is costly so we can't afford to have a hodgepodge of different toolholders that tighten inconsistently and cause a rigidity and chatter problem in the middle of a part run."

Quality isn't compromised with the output of the three-shift operation because the company operates a QC department. Utilizing a Zeiss 850 Carat, known for its size and precision measuring features of large aerospace parts, this department tracks every part and critical part feature to ensure repeatable quality throughout its three shifts.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: Cemented Carbide Inserts

Updated Software Converts Three Axis Tool Paths to Five Axis

Chris Calderone stresses that far from being limited to 2 1/2-D pocketing, these tool paths can be applied in virtually any machining situation (see "Editor's Picks" in the upper right of this screen for a link to a video demonstrating an iMachining tool path applied on a mill-turn Shoulder Milling Inserts application). The morphing spiral approach is also equally CNMG Insert effective in roughing, semi-finishing and finishing operations. However, iMachining’s greatest benefit is the time and cost savings of applying that strategy in a way that meets specific goals particular to specific applications, Mr. Calderone says. “Yes, there is a tool path at the heart of it, but the big difference with iMachining is that it just works, regardless of what the variables are,” he concludes.  

The Cemented Carbide Blog: CNC Carbide Inserts

Chris Calderone stresses that far from being limited to 2 1/2-D pocketing, these tool paths can be applied in virtually any machining situation (see "Editor's Picks" in the upper right of this screen for a link to a video demonstrating an iMachining tool path applied on a mill-turn Shoulder Milling Inserts application). The morphing spiral approach is also equally CNMG Insert effective in roughing, semi-finishing and finishing operations. However, iMachining’s greatest benefit is the time and cost savings of applying that strategy in a way that meets specific goals particular to specific applications, Mr. Calderone says. “Yes, there is a tool path at the heart of it, but the big difference with iMachining is that it just works, regardless of what the variables are,” he concludes.  

The Cemented Carbide Blog: CNC Carbide Inserts

Software Provides Customized Running Parameters for End Mills

Tooling Tech Group (TTG), a provider of tools and assembly equipment, has announced that Lee Childers, former TTG COO, has been named company CEO. He will lead TTG’s operations providing design, tooling solutions and automation equipment to the company’s Tier 1 and OEM customers and will report directly to the board of directors.

Mr. Childers joined TTG as COO in early 2018, bringing 33 years of experience in developing business plans, growth strategies and Coated Inserts leading operations for Tier 1 suppliers including United Technologies, Lear Corp., IAC Group and Crowne Group.

Anthony C. Seger, founder and former CEO of TTG, will be moving into a board role to continue advising and supporting the management Deep Hole Drilling Inserts team.

“With a lot of very hard work, we have built the largest tooling company in North America, and I’m very proud of all that we have accomplished,” says Mr. Seger. “My decision to step into a new role has been hard, but I feel greatly encouraged about the future of Tooling Tech Group and its leadership under Lee.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: VCMT Insert

Tooling Tech Group (TTG), a provider of tools and assembly equipment, has announced that Lee Childers, former TTG COO, has been named company CEO. He will lead TTG’s operations providing design, tooling solutions and automation equipment to the company’s Tier 1 and OEM customers and will report directly to the board of directors.

Mr. Childers joined TTG as COO in early 2018, bringing 33 years of experience in developing business plans, growth strategies and Coated Inserts leading operations for Tier 1 suppliers including United Technologies, Lear Corp., IAC Group and Crowne Group.

Anthony C. Seger, founder and former CEO of TTG, will be moving into a board role to continue advising and supporting the management Deep Hole Drilling Inserts team.

“With a lot of very hard work, we have built the largest tooling company in North America, and I’m very proud of all that we have accomplished,” says Mr. Seger. “My decision to step into a new role has been hard, but I feel greatly encouraged about the future of Tooling Tech Group and its leadership under Lee.”

The Cemented Carbide Blog: VCMT Insert

Sandvik Coromant on Acquisitions： Solutions Entail More Than the Tool

Calling Ace Stamping & Machine Co.’s toolroom a toolroom does the operation a disservice. What happens here is production machining by any definition, and the transformation from toolroom to captive CNC machine shop has been both rapid and impactful.

Not that any of this is immediately obvious to most visitors. After all, the company’s main, 76,000-square-foot plant is filled not with knee mills and workbenches, but lines of punch presses and racks of sheet metal.

During a walkthrough, the repetitive “kerchunk” of slamming metal dies, the whir of hydraulics and the clank of parts dropping into bins make conversation difficult. Darin Sewell, senior toolmaker and general manager, seems happy to return to the relative quiet of the milling machines in his own work area, where talk proves easier.  “Everything happens for a reason, and it’s our job to find out why,” he says about supporting the fabricating business. “If something’s happening on the first station (of a progressive die), is that affecting what’s happening on the last station? You’re looking at the whole system — you have to understand how everything works together and look at the mechanics of the situation to make a finished part.”  

However, new opportunity has made the contrast between the toolmaking and fabricating areas less stark, he says. Now armed with four new CNC VMCs, Sewell and his team have been tasked with developing and maintaining a fast, repeatable process not unlike the ones running in the main facility. “Our work here used to be all about getting it done well,” he says. “Now, it’s about getting it done fast, too.”

Despite the change in focus, spending time with Mr. Sewell makes clear that the company’s greatest asset in moving into production CNC machining was already in place. Without a fundamental toolroom education (in this case, developed over years of engineering and manufacturing jigs, fixtures and progressive die sets), Ace Stamping likely never would have obtained its first high-volume CNC contract, and the equipment investments likely never would have been possible.

He says as much, although not directly. “The customer had previously been going to dedicated CNC machine shops, but we looked at things differently,” he recalls. “We had an older machine at first, but our way (of machining the part) was faster and more consistent.”

Meanwhile, an HMC and two Swiss-type lathes have transformed operations at two co-located sister companies. Parts moving across these seven new machine tools, all of which were installed within 18 months, have provided what company Vice President James Haarsma calls “a robust increase” in annual revenue.

John W. Hamme had certainly had never seen a blockbuster about time-travelling killer robots when he coined the term “Insinkerator” in 1927, but he might not mind the natural association. A play on the word incinerator, Insinkerator is the name he chose for the company he founded to manufacture the product he invented: the garbage disposal. Located just a few miles away in Racine, Wisconsin, Insinkerator has purchased stamped garbage disposal components from Ace Stamping for decades.

However, grinding food waste as hard as solid bone requires more than just stamped components. In an Insinkerator system, food particles fall onto a spinning, plate-like shredder blade that throws them into the ridged inner walls of a surrounding grind ring. Mashed against the grind-ring teeth as the shredder blade relentlessly spins, food waste continuously flushes out of the unit and into the septic or sewage system. For durability, these two critical components (grind ring and shredder blade) are cast from high-nickel iron (NiHard). Despite Rockwell-scale hardness that Sewell says measures in the 50s, these castings must be finish-machined to ensure proper assembly and operation.

As a high-volume metal stamper, Ace Stamping had never concerned itself with such work. However, when machine shops struggled with parts for commercial-grade Insinkerator systems or refused the work entirely, the threat of a ripple-effect disruption in the company’s own stamping production became all too real. In response, the company turned threat to opportunity by letting Mr. Sewell try his hand at the parts. “We saw potential not only for direct revenue, but also to help support our own stamping lines by throwing ourselves into this work,” says James Haarsma, vice president at Ace Stamping. “Dedicating machines to the job sets us apart.”

However, justifying any investment required developing a solid process first. This task fell almost entirely to Sewell. In addition to a tough material, the variation inherent to working with raw castings made this a full-time job. Nonetheless, the reward proved to be well worth the temporary redeployment of one of the company’s few experienced toolmakers. Within three weeks, the shop was producing grind rings and shredder blades at production volumes, albeit in one size range. Now, the captive machine shop churns out approximately 200 parts per day in four different sizes.

The parts’ geometry is not complex. Tolerances of ± .0025 inch for the most demanding features posed no problem for the shop’s workhorse machine at the time, a 2011-model VMC with an intuitive conversational programming interface. Generating the G code for the machining operations — OD and ID milling for the grind rings, and face-milling, drilling and reaming for the shredder blades — was a simple matter of importing the CAD files and following the CNC’s on-screen prompts.

However, the corrosion resistance that makes NiHard useful for Insinkerator Carbide Drilling Inserts also makes the alloy tricky to cut. Machining at speed without losing too much time and money to broken cutters depended largely on Sewell’s capability to determine the right speeds, feeds and cutting depths. However, he ended up devoting most of his time to another fundamental concern. “Our first thought was, ‘How are we going to hold it?’” he recalls. “How are we going to hold it not just accurately, but repeatably? We can’t indicate (locate) each casting. We have to change over quickly.”

NiHard is “springy,” he explains, and with relatively thin walls, the grind ring castings are prone to distortion during machining. Additionally, dimensions can vary by as much as 1/16th of an inch or more from casting to casting. Distorting the part’s ID by Thread Cutting Insert clamping too forcefully or in the wrong place can make post-machining assembly impossible, assuming the casting still fits in the second, OD-milling station. Worse, the problem might not be immediately apparent. For example, a slightly smaller ID might be subjected to too much pressure from the OD milling station’s plug-like clamping device, a defect that might be discovered only after all milling was complete.

Although he lacked any CNC machining background, Sewell says years of experimenting and problem-solving in the toolroom served him well. Recalling the two weeks of process development, he says much of his time was spent “mounting indicators all over the machine” to study how the material reacted to test cuts and “going through tons of prototype fixtures that worked, but didn’t work well enough,” he says. Eventually, he developed a sequence for tightening strategically placed ID milling clamps to specific torque levels. “I’d go home at night and envision scenarios in my head — ‘I think we can make it better this way,’ or ‘let’s try that,’ — and eventually, we got there,” he says. “Once we had a good process, we made the hard tooling.”

That first grind ring casting had the thinnest walls of the entire part family, he adds. This made it ideal for developing the kind of repeatable, standardized setup process that, albeit with a few tweaks, would work for larger, more forgiving castings as well. “Everything we corrected along the way was a little step toward a perfect part,” he says. “Then, it became a matter of making it fast and repeatable.”

With a process solidified, management was ready to invest more than just time in its CNC machining capability and capacity. The first purchase was an Okuma Genos M560 VMC.  This machine enabled an immediate, 30% increase in speeds and feeds using essentially the same G code and setup. Mr. Sewell attributes this gain to a rigid, double-column design. A chip-to-chip tool-change time of less than 5 seconds, compared to the older VMC’s 30 seconds, has also significantly improved productivity, as has the increase in rapid-traverse speed from 275 ipm to more than 1,500. Thanks to these and other advantages, cycle times were reduced by nearly half. The captive machine shop now has three more VMCs: another of the same model, and two Okuma MB-46V machines, all of which are dedicated to machining castings.

However, the inherent imprecision of the casting process limits the extent to which the process can be systemized, Mr. Sewell says. As a result, a skilled hand and toolroom-style thinking have proven just as valuable for keeping production running smoothly as developing the process in the first place. “Every part is unique, and every new person has to get a feel for it,” Mr. Sewell says about setting up the VMCs. “Every size has its own little idiosyncrasies that our people need to know how to deal with.” 

Returning to the grind ring milling fixture, he says it requires some degree of “feel” to bring each ID milling clamp down to the proper torque setting, even with specific torque targets and a specific clamp-tightening sequence. On the second, OD milling fixture station, the situation is similar. The locating plug doubles as a clamp. Locating and fixturing simultaneously without “clamping a twist” into the part, as Mr. Sewell puts it, requires some degree of instinct. “If we have to beat it in there, it’s getting to tight, but if it just drops in, it’s too big. They’ll know if it goes in the right way, that it’s perfectly sized. (This manual process) provides a way to rapidly locate it, clamp it, and ensure proper size without having to measure every fifth part on a CMM. We just know if it fits nice, we’re there.”

Ace Stamping continues to expand its machining horizons. At sister company Shakespeare Machine Stamping, a manufacturer of abrasive wheel components that Ace Stamping purchased in 1990, two new Tsugami 3025B-II Swiss-type lathes have been employed to repeat the same strategy: that is, bringing a critical part in house in order to support the company’s own fabricating operation while also providing direct revenue stream. Meanwhile, an Okuma MB-4000H HMC has helped rejuvenate another sister company, industrial vise manufacturer Heinrich Vise, by replacing an older machine that continually broke down. 

All of these machines were purchased from Morris Midwest, which Sewell credits for its quality service, support and, particularly, knowledge. (In fact, he credits a Morris representative for identifying the opportunity for Swiss-types in the first place, noting that “I didn’t even know what a Swiss-type lathe was.”) However, even the most sophisticated machining equipment backed by the most well-resourced and attentive dealer goes only so far. More than just Ace Stamping’s most important and profitable contract, the NiHard casting application serves as a continual reminder of the value of a fundamental shop-floor education, and of the fact that machine tools are just that: tools.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: Carbide Milling Inserts

Calling Ace Stamping & Machine Co.’s toolroom a toolroom does the operation a disservice. What happens here is production machining by any definition, and the transformation from toolroom to captive CNC machine shop has been both rapid and impactful.

Not that any of this is immediately obvious to most visitors. After all, the company’s main, 76,000-square-foot plant is filled not with knee mills and workbenches, but lines of punch presses and racks of sheet metal.

During a walkthrough, the repetitive “kerchunk” of slamming metal dies, the whir of hydraulics and the clank of parts dropping into bins make conversation difficult. Darin Sewell, senior toolmaker and general manager, seems happy to return to the relative quiet of the milling machines in his own work area, where talk proves easier.  “Everything happens for a reason, and it’s our job to find out why,” he says about supporting the fabricating business. “If something’s happening on the first station (of a progressive die), is that affecting what’s happening on the last station? You’re looking at the whole system — you have to understand how everything works together and look at the mechanics of the situation to make a finished part.”  

However, new opportunity has made the contrast between the toolmaking and fabricating areas less stark, he says. Now armed with four new CNC VMCs, Sewell and his team have been tasked with developing and maintaining a fast, repeatable process not unlike the ones running in the main facility. “Our work here used to be all about getting it done well,” he says. “Now, it’s about getting it done fast, too.”

Despite the change in focus, spending time with Mr. Sewell makes clear that the company’s greatest asset in moving into production CNC machining was already in place. Without a fundamental toolroom education (in this case, developed over years of engineering and manufacturing jigs, fixtures and progressive die sets), Ace Stamping likely never would have obtained its first high-volume CNC contract, and the equipment investments likely never would have been possible.

He says as much, although not directly. “The customer had previously been going to dedicated CNC machine shops, but we looked at things differently,” he recalls. “We had an older machine at first, but our way (of machining the part) was faster and more consistent.”

Meanwhile, an HMC and two Swiss-type lathes have transformed operations at two co-located sister companies. Parts moving across these seven new machine tools, all of which were installed within 18 months, have provided what company Vice President James Haarsma calls “a robust increase” in annual revenue.

John W. Hamme had certainly had never seen a blockbuster about time-travelling killer robots when he coined the term “Insinkerator” in 1927, but he might not mind the natural association. A play on the word incinerator, Insinkerator is the name he chose for the company he founded to manufacture the product he invented: the garbage disposal. Located just a few miles away in Racine, Wisconsin, Insinkerator has purchased stamped garbage disposal components from Ace Stamping for decades.

However, grinding food waste as hard as solid bone requires more than just stamped components. In an Insinkerator system, food particles fall onto a spinning, plate-like shredder blade that throws them into the ridged inner walls of a surrounding grind ring. Mashed against the grind-ring teeth as the shredder blade relentlessly spins, food waste continuously flushes out of the unit and into the septic or sewage system. For durability, these two critical components (grind ring and shredder blade) are cast from high-nickel iron (NiHard). Despite Rockwell-scale hardness that Sewell says measures in the 50s, these castings must be finish-machined to ensure proper assembly and operation.

As a high-volume metal stamper, Ace Stamping had never concerned itself with such work. However, when machine shops struggled with parts for commercial-grade Insinkerator systems or refused the work entirely, the threat of a ripple-effect disruption in the company’s own stamping production became all too real. In response, the company turned threat to opportunity by letting Mr. Sewell try his hand at the parts. “We saw potential not only for direct revenue, but also to help support our own stamping lines by throwing ourselves into this work,” says James Haarsma, vice president at Ace Stamping. “Dedicating machines to the job sets us apart.”

However, justifying any investment required developing a solid process first. This task fell almost entirely to Sewell. In addition to a tough material, the variation inherent to working with raw castings made this a full-time job. Nonetheless, the reward proved to be well worth the temporary redeployment of one of the company’s few experienced toolmakers. Within three weeks, the shop was producing grind rings and shredder blades at production volumes, albeit in one size range. Now, the captive machine shop churns out approximately 200 parts per day in four different sizes.

The parts’ geometry is not complex. Tolerances of ± .0025 inch for the most demanding features posed no problem for the shop’s workhorse machine at the time, a 2011-model VMC with an intuitive conversational programming interface. Generating the G code for the machining operations — OD and ID milling for the grind rings, and face-milling, drilling and reaming for the shredder blades — was a simple matter of importing the CAD files and following the CNC’s on-screen prompts.

However, the corrosion resistance that makes NiHard useful for Insinkerator Carbide Drilling Inserts also makes the alloy tricky to cut. Machining at speed without losing too much time and money to broken cutters depended largely on Sewell’s capability to determine the right speeds, feeds and cutting depths. However, he ended up devoting most of his time to another fundamental concern. “Our first thought was, ‘How are we going to hold it?’” he recalls. “How are we going to hold it not just accurately, but repeatably? We can’t indicate (locate) each casting. We have to change over quickly.”

NiHard is “springy,” he explains, and with relatively thin walls, the grind ring castings are prone to distortion during machining. Additionally, dimensions can vary by as much as 1/16th of an inch or more from casting to casting. Distorting the part’s ID by Thread Cutting Insert clamping too forcefully or in the wrong place can make post-machining assembly impossible, assuming the casting still fits in the second, OD-milling station. Worse, the problem might not be immediately apparent. For example, a slightly smaller ID might be subjected to too much pressure from the OD milling station’s plug-like clamping device, a defect that might be discovered only after all milling was complete.

Although he lacked any CNC machining background, Sewell says years of experimenting and problem-solving in the toolroom served him well. Recalling the two weeks of process development, he says much of his time was spent “mounting indicators all over the machine” to study how the material reacted to test cuts and “going through tons of prototype fixtures that worked, but didn’t work well enough,” he says. Eventually, he developed a sequence for tightening strategically placed ID milling clamps to specific torque levels. “I’d go home at night and envision scenarios in my head — ‘I think we can make it better this way,’ or ‘let’s try that,’ — and eventually, we got there,” he says. “Once we had a good process, we made the hard tooling.”

That first grind ring casting had the thinnest walls of the entire part family, he adds. This made it ideal for developing the kind of repeatable, standardized setup process that, albeit with a few tweaks, would work for larger, more forgiving castings as well. “Everything we corrected along the way was a little step toward a perfect part,” he says. “Then, it became a matter of making it fast and repeatable.”

With a process solidified, management was ready to invest more than just time in its CNC machining capability and capacity. The first purchase was an Okuma Genos M560 VMC.  This machine enabled an immediate, 30% increase in speeds and feeds using essentially the same G code and setup. Mr. Sewell attributes this gain to a rigid, double-column design. A chip-to-chip tool-change time of less than 5 seconds, compared to the older VMC’s 30 seconds, has also significantly improved productivity, as has the increase in rapid-traverse speed from 275 ipm to more than 1,500. Thanks to these and other advantages, cycle times were reduced by nearly half. The captive machine shop now has three more VMCs: another of the same model, and two Okuma MB-46V machines, all of which are dedicated to machining castings.

However, the inherent imprecision of the casting process limits the extent to which the process can be systemized, Mr. Sewell says. As a result, a skilled hand and toolroom-style thinking have proven just as valuable for keeping production running smoothly as developing the process in the first place. “Every part is unique, and every new person has to get a feel for it,” Mr. Sewell says about setting up the VMCs. “Every size has its own little idiosyncrasies that our people need to know how to deal with.” 

Returning to the grind ring milling fixture, he says it requires some degree of “feel” to bring each ID milling clamp down to the proper torque setting, even with specific torque targets and a specific clamp-tightening sequence. On the second, OD milling fixture station, the situation is similar. The locating plug doubles as a clamp. Locating and fixturing simultaneously without “clamping a twist” into the part, as Mr. Sewell puts it, requires some degree of instinct. “If we have to beat it in there, it’s getting to tight, but if it just drops in, it’s too big. They’ll know if it goes in the right way, that it’s perfectly sized. (This manual process) provides a way to rapidly locate it, clamp it, and ensure proper size without having to measure every fifth part on a CMM. We just know if it fits nice, we’re there.”

Ace Stamping continues to expand its machining horizons. At sister company Shakespeare Machine Stamping, a manufacturer of abrasive wheel components that Ace Stamping purchased in 1990, two new Tsugami 3025B-II Swiss-type lathes have been employed to repeat the same strategy: that is, bringing a critical part in house in order to support the company’s own fabricating operation while also providing direct revenue stream. Meanwhile, an Okuma MB-4000H HMC has helped rejuvenate another sister company, industrial vise manufacturer Heinrich Vise, by replacing an older machine that continually broke down. 

All of these machines were purchased from Morris Midwest, which Sewell credits for its quality service, support and, particularly, knowledge. (In fact, he credits a Morris representative for identifying the opportunity for Swiss-types in the first place, noting that “I didn’t even know what a Swiss-type lathe was.”) However, even the most sophisticated machining equipment backed by the most well-resourced and attentive dealer goes only so far. More than just Ace Stamping’s most important and profitable contract, the NiHard casting application serves as a continual reminder of the value of a fundamental shop-floor education, and of the fact that machine tools are just that: tools.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: Carbide Milling Inserts

Data Feeding Cutting Tools Win IMTS Award

Allied Machine & Engineering offers Wohlhaupter’s MVS modular connection system. Part of the Multibore collection, the MVS connection is a flexible system designed primarily for drilling and boring, with application possibilities in tapping, end milling and light shell milling.

The MVS connection is a modular connection that enables the use of extended lengths or reduced diameters by using a series of components engineered for flexible adaptation. Four sizes are available to accommodate the diameter range of the boring required: MVS 50-28, 63-36, 80-36 and 100-56.Face Milling Inserts Operators can easily build and change tooling components, and this flexibility enables the system to work accurately for almost any project’s needs, the company says.

The MVS connection offers a mating and clamping draw force of approximately 1,900 psi provided by a three-point triangular system. The Thread Cutting Insert pressure points are an equal 120 degrees apart, providing high rigidity, high performance capability and a total system accuracy of 3 microns. The system holds tolerances of 0.002 microns ID to OD and a consistent 0.002 microns of parallelism between mating surfaces.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: VBMT Insert

Allied Machine & Engineering offers Wohlhaupter’s MVS modular connection system. Part of the Multibore collection, the MVS connection is a flexible system designed primarily for drilling and boring, with application possibilities in tapping, end milling and light shell milling.

The MVS connection is a modular connection that enables the use of extended lengths or reduced diameters by using a series of components engineered for flexible adaptation. Four sizes are available to accommodate the diameter range of the boring required: MVS 50-28, 63-36, 80-36 and 100-56.Face Milling Inserts Operators can easily build and change tooling components, and this flexibility enables the system to work accurately for almost any project’s needs, the company says.

The MVS connection offers a mating and clamping draw force of approximately 1,900 psi provided by a three-point triangular system. The Thread Cutting Insert pressure points are an equal 120 degrees apart, providing high rigidity, high performance capability and a total system accuracy of 3 microns. The system holds tolerances of 0.002 microns ID to OD and a consistent 0.002 microns of parallelism between mating surfaces.

The Cemented Carbide Blog: VBMT Insert