Cool tools

When the job calls for going deep, these new tools could make a splash in your shop.

The tools are an extension of the line of H-Carb seven-flute carbide endmills from Kyocera SGS Precision Tools Inc. in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. What sets the new offerings apart is a central hole that delivers coolant to the cutting zone in order to reduce wear and improve chip evacuation in deep pocketing and slotting applications.

The 400-plus new coolant-through options also feature a standard chip-breaker profile to facilitate chip flow. But even when using a chip-breaker tool for deep pocketing, “some of those chips can still be a little bit heavy and hard to evacuate from the pocket,” noted Jake Rutherford, a research and development engineer at Kyocera SGS Precision Tools. “The through-coolant really helps get that material out of there so you’re not recutting chips and causing premature damage to your tool.”

Image courtesy of Kyocera SGS Precision Tools Inc.

According to Rutherford, the main advantage of the coolant-through feature is probably the boost it gives to a tool’s ramping capabilities. “With a helical ramp, there’s a lot of heat down at the bottom where the cutting is actually going on,” he explained. “The deeper you get, the more critical that coolant flow becomes and the more difficult it is to get coolant to that cutting edge.”

By delivering large amounts of coolant to the place where it’s needed, the coolant-through tools allow shops to use up to six times greater ramp angles than those recommended for tools lacking this feature, Rutherford said. “And running at that steeper angle allows you to get to the bottom of your pocket faster, reducing your cycle time.”