Productive Times: Ground round: General Industry Coverage

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END USER: Crowley Tool Co., (615) 824-5594, www.crowleytool.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Schütte LLC, (800) 668-4035, www.schutteusa.com. CHALLENGE: Enhance reliability when grinding round tools. SOLUTION: A new 5-axis CNC tool and cutter grinder with linear-drive technology.

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Crowley Tool Co. specializes in designing and manufacturing custom insertable form tools for all makes and models of multiple- and single-spindle screw machines. Crowley Tool, Hendersonville, Tenn., can work from customer part prints and process layouts to produce tools to overcome challenging applications.

The toolmaker does a significant amount of conventional, or manual, grinding to produce inserts. “Because so much of our work is unique, with maybe 20 pieces being a big order for us, we spend considerable time in setup and fixturing time,” said Ed Crowley, company president.

Eddie Boland, Crowley Tool machine operator and toolmaker, says the Schütte 325linear grinder allows him to quickly produce flutes in tools, owing to the subroutines and macros on the machine. All images courtesy Justin Maxey, Crowley Tool.

About 10 years ago, Crowley Tool decided it wanted to make more round cutting tools and saw a 5-axis CNC WU305linear grinding machine from Schütte LLC, Jackson, Mich., at a trade show. The machine was more suitable than the company’s existing equipment for producing round tools, Crowley said, and “It had some amazing features that we knew would make a difference for our operation.”

However, the toolmaker’s budget at the time prevented the purchase of a new grinder, so it opted for a used one instead, he added.

The used grinder enabled Crowley Tool to significantly shorten the time it took to produce a round tool, from about 2½ hours to 30 minutes, but the previous owners hadn’t treated the machine with a lot of TLC, speculated Eddie Boland, a machine operator and toolmaker at Crowley Tool. “I feel like it had been abused,” he said.

As a result, Boland said Crowley Tool experienced reliability issues with the grinder. The toolmaker was able to upgrade the grinding software, but that required replacing the machine’s computer.