Alan Richter

Articles • May 1, 2009 • Alan Richter

Clean, green and lean

Shops can be both lean and green by using work cell-based approach to parts washing and environmentally friendly cleaning compounds and technologies.

Articles • March 1, 2009 • Alan Richter

Looking for Something Special

Exploring the ins and outs of specifying and ordering a flexible specialty machine tool and having a machine builder produce it.

Articles • February 1, 2009 • Alan Richter

Wind Power Parts

As wind power makes significant inroads into the energy-generation infrastructure, machining wind turbine parts provides opportunities for diversification and growth.

Articles • January 1, 2009 • Alan Richter

Polygon Power

With its patent expired, the Coromant Capto modular toolholding system is now governed by an ISO standard.

Articles • December 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Grinding’s Blackest Art

Centerless grinding is often viewed as overly complex, but a look at the process' fundamentals reveals otherwise.

Articles • October 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Coating’s Holy Grail

Commercialization of cubic boron nitride coatings has proven elusive, but a two-step process for coating cutting tools with CBN is expected to come to market soon.

Articles • September 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Smart Weighting Auto Parts

Auto manufacturers are 'lightweighting' vehicles by incorporating more aluminum and microalloy steel components.

Articles • July 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Tiny Tech

A recap of some of the applied microsystem technology innovations presented at the Hannover Messe trade fair.

Articles • July 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Striving for Consistency

Reliably drilling high-quality holes in ductile cast iron requires understanding the material's structure, avoiding problems such as core shifting, keeping machining temperatures down and other considerations.

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 • April 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Top Tools

There are five tool tips for moldmakers for speeding up production and aiding in highly repeatable, precision machining. Included are deep-hole drills to avoid pecking, high-feed cutters, tools for reducing EDMing, high-precision cutters and PCBN cutting tools.

Articles • March 1, 2008 • Alan Richter

Tool Spray

With through-tool minimum-quantity lubrication, machine shops may be able to decrease coolant costs and increase productivity and part quality. But, they have to invest in equipment and tooling to achieve those results.