Articles

The Grinding Doc tackles a common mistake made by shops using CBN wheels is that they choose a grit size that's too large and then take drastic actions to cope with it.

A collection of workholding products compiled by the editors of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

Dynamic and aggressive cutting tool demonstrations are common at trade shows. Toolmakers present phenomenal displays, where chips spark and fly and machines move at feed rates that seem impossible. In other words, they demonstrate high-speed machining.

A unique manual milling method is available for generating geometrically true spherical surfaces. This technique can be used to machine convex and concave spherical surfaces. Other than the milling machine, the only tools needed are a boring head and a rotary table.

Produce parts faster without investing in additional fixturing. Efficiently reprogram the parts with the company's CAM software after moving part production to a multitask lathe.

Achieve tight-tolerance requirements when producing microtools. Grinding machines designed to produce microtools.

Overcoming a bottleneck caused when programming different machine tools with various CAD/CAM systems. A single CAD/CAM system that can program multiple machine brands.

My recent past has, unfortunately, included the passing away of several acquaintances, one only 38 years old. I also read an obituary in the local paper about a machinist we formerly employed, a man only in his 50s.r In addition, an employee's wife was diagnosed with cancer, completely changing his priorities. Around this same time, my youngest brother had a medical scare, and my mother fell in her backyard and broke a shoulder, requiring a 4-week recovery and making it almost impossible for her to take care of her 90-year-old mother.r These events have brought a sobering degree of reality into my life. That is, the realization that time marches on for everyone and, eventually, something unexpected will impact our lives and our businesses.

Several weeks ago, my wife and I attended a dinner party at her sister's home. One of the guests heard I was in manufacturing and introduced himself. He's 48, married and has five children and a mortgage. He's a pleasant individual, and we spoke about his trials and tribulations over the last few years. He lost his job during the Great Recession and has since been struggling to find a steady job. Unemployment checks and odd jobs, as well as assistance from their church and friends, have helped his family muddle along. His experience is in customer service and sales.

Real-time measurements during metalcutting can offer significant insight into machine tool performance. The parameters to be measured include position, velocity and acceleration of the axes; cutting force; sound; temperature; and acoustic emission, which is not the same as sound, but rather a high-frequency, structure-borne vibration.

A pump on a waterjet machine generates the high-pressure water needed for cutting by taking low-pressure water into a cylinder, compressing the water with a plunger and then pushing the high-pressure water out of the cylinder. During a pressure cycle of intake, compression and expulsion, high-pressure components and polymer seals see the water pressure jump from two-digit inlet pressures to outlet pressures in the tens of thousands of psi.

Thermal compensation of a coordinate measuring machine's principle structural components and the part being measured helps ensure measuring accuracy over an extended temperature range when the CMM is installed outside of a temperature-controlled area. Such a temperature-compensation system is comprised of temperature sensors and cabling running through the machine to its controller. The more sensors there are the more accurate the system, but these cables can cause mechanical issues and will eventually fray or break because of the constant CMM motion.