Articles

Early in my stint here, I called Alan Baker, founder of toolmaker A.B. Tools Inc., in connection with an article I was writing about thread milling small-diameter holes. I started the interview with a general question about available thread mills sizes for these applications and was encouraged to first gather that information from Machinery's Handbook and then call him back.

END USER: Homeyer Precision Manufacturing, (636) 433-2244, www.homeyertool.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc., (888) 866-5776, www.bigkaiser.com. CHALLENGE: Minimize endmill runout to extend tool life when producing aluminum-based forceps. SOLUTION: A collet chuck that provides minimal runout.

END USER: Antron Engineering and Machine Co. Inc., (877) 225-2362, www.antroneng.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Eltool Corp., (877) 435-8665, www.eltool.com. CHALLENGE: Mill a long, interrupted slot in a small-diameter bore. SOLUTION: A coolant-driven angle head.

END USER: Greene Tool Systems Inc., (800) BUY-TOOL, www.greenetool.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: ANCA Inc., (248) 926-4466, www.anca.com. CHALLENGE: Produce microscale cutting tools more accurately while lowering setup times. SOLUTION: Two grinding machines designed to produce tools smaller than 2mm in diameter that feature robotic arms for loading and unloading tools and wheel packs.

Machine tool idling, unnecessary pump rotation and continuously running peripheral equipment drive up machining costs. These energy wasters are in the crosshairs of a new suite of power-cutting control applications from Japanese machine tool builder Okuma Corp.

To bring all kinds of useful information right to a machine and facilitate a company's implementation of Industry 4.0 processing tools, INDEX Corp. has begun supplying its machine tools with a new operating system. Called Xpanel, the OS integrates a machine into a corporate network, allowing machine operators to receive information from other parts of an enterprise.

Though Rosie the Riveter and a multitude of her sisters proved that women were perfectly capable of working in manufacturing when the men were called to serve during World War II, many of these patriotic women graciously stepped aside to allow the returning soldiers to resume their jobs.

Setup reduction is a common goal of every machine shop. Setup does not add value because it does not provide any measureable productivity. In short, when you are not running a machine, you are not making chips, and, therefore, you are not making money.

Vertical machining centers are machine shop mainstays, owing in no small part to their versatility, small footprint and relatively low cost. However, in high-volume environments, they tend to lag behind their horizontal counterparts. Fortunately, a pallet system provides a fairly simple fix.

Troubleshooting machining operations can be a daunting task, especially boring operations. This is because when machining the outside of a part, you can see what causes the tool to fail. However, when a tool is buried in a hole, as is the case when boring, you can't see what is happening to the tool.

Without a manufacturing schedule, workpiece materials don't arrive on time, machine tools sit idle and customers fume. However, scheduling is difficult, especially when multiple-level assemblies and large numbers of components are involved. To meet this need, software companies have developed complex, integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

One of the most enduring issues in the metalworking world is finding and retaining skilled workers, and the 10th annual Metalworking Trends Survey from LoSasso Integrated Marketing, Chicago, showed that this challenge continues.