Articles

Myles Tool Company, Sanborn, NY, since 1977 has specialized in producing standard and special carbide cutting tools for the aerospace, automotive and medical sectors. A one-stop shop for standard tools, regrinds, and special tools made to customer requirements, Myles has grown by investing in new machines and high quality equipment.

A PROFIMAT MC 607 5-axis CNC grinding machine manufactured by Blohm Jung GmbH in Germany has been supplied in close cooperation with UK agent, J.R.A. Bennett Ltd, at The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC) with Boeing. It follows a rigorous tender process that involved evaluating hundreds of parameters and included grinding trials at the machine builder's factory in Hamburg.

Productive Times challenge: Ensure there are no machining issues with a flexible manufacturing system. The solution: Machine simulation and optimization software.

Productive Times challenge: Effectively clean and cool grinding oil applied in latest-generation grinders. The solution: A filtration and chiller system that directly communicates with grinding machines.

The acquisition of Helical Solutions LLC by Harvey Tool Co., Rowley, Mass., officially took place August 2015. The opportunity to combine the product performance and technical expertise of both organizations was the driving force behind the initial acquisition, according to Harvey Tool CEO Pete Jenkins.

Planning is critical when operating CNC machines. When I began machining, CNCs were just coming into mainstream use. The first shops I worked in had only conventional (manual) machines. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that I started to notice the incredible versatility of CNC machines. The complex contours and shapes the machines could generate made many jobs much easier. The use of templates to file and sweep in surfaces was rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

The importance of mastering fundamental turning skills. Turning and other lathe operations are the most common machining applications. A master tool and die maker once told me a lathe is the only piece of shop equipment that can remanufacture itself. Whether or not the statement is factual is not important. Having the lathe described in that manner indicates how important and universal turning is to manufacturing.

The benefits of creating and using a virtual machine tool. At trade shows and elsewhere, people on the cutting edge of manufacturing are touting the benefits of digitalizing the machine tool environment, where technologies are employed that make use of digital data. It's at the heart of the much-discussed drive toward Industry 4.0.

Jeffrey Badger, Ph.D., fields a question from a shop getting "terrible burn on the shoulder" when cylindrical grinding steel parts with a straight plunge.

Addressing weighty issues is an important part of the Manager's Desk column, and there will be no shortage of them to debate and discuss in 2016.

Turbine blades are typically mounted on compressor disks and milled from a single piece of material rather than constructed blade by blade. These are known as blade-integrated disks, or blisks, and their main function is to compress air in the turbine.

To improve performance, reduce cycle times and enhance machine operation, Makino Inc. has released Hyper technologies for its full line of wire, sinker and holemaking EDMs.n