Articles & Columns

Simultaneously improve product quality and productivity when EDMing PCD and PCBN cutting tools and wear parts. An automation process that incorporates work cells.

New and traditional part grinding technologies combine to control vibration and improve precision.

Abrasive waterjet users can benefit by learning about the technology's expanding applicability.

After working in the machining and fabrication business for 21 years, Keith Jennings, the Manager's Desk columnist for Cutting Tool Engineering, has concluded that million-dollar jobs don't guarantee big profits.

Cutting Tool Engineering Editorial Director Alan Rooks ponders the impact additive manufacturing will make on the industry.

When management smiles down upon CAM initiatives, shops can realize numerous benefits, according to the Get With The Program column in this month's Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

Ultrashort pulsed-laser deposition of diamond-like coatings.

Improve cutting edge integrity and flute faces of cutting tools. A flute finishing process that uses a fine-grit, hybrid resin-bond flute polishing grinding wheel, special truing wheels and fine-grit dressing sticks.

Electron beam drills make short work of microholes.

Producing prototype automotive parts via 3-D printing helps reduce time to market while boosting vehicle quality and fuel efficiency.

Tom Lipton, the author of Cutting Tool Engineering's Shop Operations column, shares a trick he learned that reveals an interesting use of relatively crash-proof soft metal or plastic bed plates on a milling machine.

Minimize lubricant for a mass-production cylinder head line. Switch to minimum quantity lubrication.

A collection of metalworking products for your review.

This month's Cutting Tool Engineering Machinist's Corner column asks, "Why waste everyone's time courting a new customer if you aren't prepared to accommodate them?"

Produce additional parts without investing in a new machine tool and eliminate manually bending parts. A robot that is flexible and easy to program and move.

Part manufacturers are always challenged to achieve toolholding connections that are simple, repeatable and stiff, and shrink-fit toolholders provide those requirements.

Debating the need for CAM systems on Swiss-style machines.

When cleaning parts, there is general cleaning and then there is precision cleaning. Both types are important in medical device manufacturing, but precision cleaning -- repeatable removal of contaminants to a specified, usually validated standard -- has become more prevalent in part because of increasingly stringent Food and Drug Administration oversight of the manufacturing process, resulting in stricter process QC.

The use of conversational programming is growing and may influence tomorrow's conventional machine controls.

Diminishing numbers of skilled tradesmen in the workforce and the need to reduce production costs have caused machine tool automation to proliferate during the past decade.