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.
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.
Innovations Enable Faster Beam Delivery, On-the-Fly Welding April 6, 2018 For ABB, robotic welding comes down to a never-ending process of ensuring parts are suitable for laser joining and developing the appropriate processes. To that end, ABB is refining a recent innovation to improve beam delivery speeds and has developed software for on-the-fly welding in tandem with Trumpf’s Intelligent Programmable Focusing Optic (IPFO).
Optical Metrology in Three Dimensions May 29, 2018 Basic trends in modern manufacturing are driving growth in 3D optical metrology. “One is the highly complex and high-tech material that manufacturers are using today. For example, in the aerospace turbine blade market, they simply cannot touch the part like they used to—the surface finish of the material is too readily affected by any kind of contact metrology."
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).
Haas Automation Reports Record Sales in 2017 February 7, 2018 Haas Automation Inc. (Oxnard, CA) reported that its annual sales in 2017 exceeded 13,500 units for the first time in company history—an increase of nearly 30% over 2016. “It was an incredible year,” said Scott Gasich, vice president of sales & marketing."
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.
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.
Better Balanced Toolholders Lead to Best Machining Results February 5, 2018 K&G Manufacturing (Faribault, MN) has learned a thing or two about precision machining in the 80 years it has been in business. One lesson the company learned long ago is that balanced toolholders are a key to customer satisfaction and achieving the best possible machining results.