Articles

Articles • June 1, 2008 • Jeffrey A. Badger, Ph.D.

Calculated Grinding

Parts manufacturers can calculate the optimal parameters when grinding with superabrasive wheels to achieve high material-removal rates and more consistent results.

Articles • June 1, 2008 • Bill Kennedy

Chopper Shop

A small, Philadelphia-area shop is using a 55,000-psi, 2,000-mph abrasive waterjet to help grow its primary business: making parts for Boeing aircraft.

Articles • May 1, 2008 • Bill Kennedy

Chips Happen

When single-point boring, parts manufacturers can break and control the long chips from low-carbon steels by taking into account setup, cutting parameters, nose radii and insert shape and sharpness.

Articles • May 1, 2008 • Edmund Isakov, Ph.D.

Cast Contents

Choosing the right cast aluminum and aluminum alloys from among the hundreds of different grades and the many tempers in each grade requires understanding of the materials' designation system to know their compositions, tempers and properties.

Articles • May 1, 2008 • Bill Kennedy

Ceramic Healing

Advanced ceramics' properties make them suitable materials for medical instruments and implants, as well as for parts in medical devices. Making ceramic parts, however, requires manufacturing techniques similar to those used to make P/M parts and may require applying diamond-impregnated tools and wheels.

Articles • May 1, 2008 • Joseph Hazelton

Coming to More Shops Soon?

High-power laser machines—at least 5,000w—are more useful in machine shops because their power permits fast processing of thicker materials, materials more like the blocks machined by the metalcutting industry. Also, automation allows for more cost-effective laser machining.

Articles • May 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

From Design to Part

It's not just for prototyping; additive, or rapid, manufacturing can be a cost-effective way of producing parts, especially when used for mass customization of parts and for low-volume runs of smaller, complex, net- and near net-shape parts.

Articles • May 1, 2008

Your shop’s working people

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Articles • April 1, 2008 • Steve Bertrand

New Rules of Engagement

High-speed machining can improve productivity, but a shop will need to change its tool settings and toolpath strategies and experiment with feed rates to achieve this goal.

Articles • April 1, 2008 • Joseph Hazelton

Harder With Silicon

Several types of cutting tools can be protected with coatings harder than regular A1TiN coatings by combining A1TiN grains with an amorphous silicon-nitride matrix.

Articles • April 1, 2008 • Jorge L. Larco

The Transformers

Lean manufacturing can benefit medium-size and larger companies by improving productivity and reducing quality problems and lead times. Benefits can be realized even in smaller, highly variable job shops through standardized work, balancing and flowing.

Articles • April 1, 2008 • Dr. LaRoux K. Gillespie

Alluring Deburring

Magnetic abrasive finishing can deburr and create highly polished, smooth surface finishes. It can also remove microcracks, recast metal, metallurgical phase changes, visible scratches and damaging residual stresses.