Looking for Something Special: CMM Inspection
Exploring the ins and outs of specifying and ordering a flexible specialty machine tool and having a machine builder produce it.
Editorial
Alan Richter
Alan Richter, a 40-plus-year veteran journalist, has spent the last 25 years covering the metalworking industry for Cutting Tool Engineering and currently serves as its editor-at-large. Contact him at [email protected].
Editor-at-large
Email: alan@ctepubs.com
Published content
Wind Power Parts: CMM Inspection
As wind power makes significant inroads into the energy-generation infrastructure, machining wind turbine parts provides opportunities for diversification and growth.
Polygon Power: CMM Inspection
With its patent expired, the Coromant Capto modular toolholding system is now governed by an ISO standard.
Grinding’s Blackest Art
Centerless grinding is often viewed as overly complex, but a look at the process' fundamentals reveals otherwise.
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.
Smart Weighting Auto Parts: General Industry Coverage
Auto manufacturers are 'lightweighting' vehicles by incorporating more aluminum and microalloy steel components.
Tiny Tech: Trade Shows & Events
A recap of some of the applied microsystem technology innovations presented at the Hannover Messe trade fair.
Striving for Consistency: Drilling Performance
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.
From Design to Part: Design & Engineering
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.
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.
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.
Building for Micromachining
Creating the machine tools that make microparts.
