It’s a sad fact of practically all metal removal operations that, no matter how sharp the tool or free-machining the material, there are going to be burrs, hanging chads, ragged corners, and other edge quality issues that must be dealt with before calling the workpiece complete.
With today’s focus on lightweighting, hollow parts made from composite materials—such as ducting, fuel tanks, mandrels, and rocket shrouds—are in higher demand than ever before.
Steve Pollack had just about reached early retirement age when longtime friend and colleague Joe DeSimone asked him to join Carbon, his startup 3D printing company.
Unplanned downtime and production loss due to equipment failure is one of the leading losses for manufacturers. Most shops perform maintenance on a fixed schedule or on failure. This means a machine will be maintained regardless of how often it is used and unexpected breakdowns will stop production.
Methods Machine Tools Inc. (Sudbury, MA), a leading supplier of precision machine tools, 3D printing technology and automation, recently introduced an automation cell designed to greatly boost 3D manufacturing throughput.
Mazak Corp. (Florence, KY) continues its steady advance toward the complete factory digitization of all its manufacturing operations with the recent transformation of its Oguchi, Japan, facility into yet another Mazak iSMART Factory.
Airbus has achieved a 3D printing first with the installation of a 3D printed titanium bracket on a series production commercial aircraft. Manufactured by Arconic, a global technology, engineering, and advanced manufacturing company, the 3D printed titanium bracket was installed on a series production Airbus commercial aircraft, the A350 XWB.
LUBECK, GERMANY, June 19, 2017 – SLM Solutions Group AG, a leading supplier of metal-based additive manufacturing technology, signed a long-term cooperation agreement with BeamIT S.p.a., which is based in Fornovo di Taro, Italy. The cooperation concerns the joint development and testing of various parameters for setting the machines when using various metal powders.
It is reported that, not too long ago, before the current precipitous decline in machine-tool shipments, the number of 30-taper machines that were being manufactured and sold in Japan had surpassed the numbers of 40-taper and 50-taper machining centers.
Even though it’s been around since the 1950s, when engineering-grade resins were first introduced, many manufacturers still are not familiar with the many benefits that metal-to-plastic conversion provides.
