Christopher Tate

Thread cutting is as close to artistic expression as one typically gets in a machine shop. Watching a machinist or toolmaker peel off perfectly formed chips with a precisely ground tool is mesmerizing.

Often dictated by the production environment, part quantities and part function, the selection of a parts marking method presents a variety of choices—each of which comes with pros and cons.

The single most significant benefit offered by indexable tools is the ability to renew the cutting edge without having to remove the cutting tool from production.

A close look at the evolving technology of tool presetting.

Components used in the manufacture of combustion hardware for a Mitsubishi gas turbine begin life as sheet or plate stock. Because our components come from large sheets, we start every manufacturing process by cutting the desired shape or profile.

Until I started working for Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, lifting parts was never a consideration in daily production. Previously, the parts I dealt with were small, usually never larger than a dinner plate. Lifting equipment, such as forklifts and pallet jacks, were often employed, but only to move raw materials to a machine tool or to load and unload trucks—never as part of the production process.

Setup reduction is a common goal of every machine shop. Setup does not add value because it does not provide any measureable productivity. In short, when you are not running a machine, you are not making chips, and, therefore, you are not making money. Setup involves numerous non-value-added activities, including tool measurement, fixture alignment and setting coordinate systems, or offsets. As the term suggests, value-adding activities make a workpiece more valuable by changing its shape or physical properties. Many years in and out of machine shops and manufacturing plants have given me ample opportunities to see and establish some unique and familiar methods for reducing setup times and generating savings.

Careful consideration when implementing inspection processes yields efficiencies. Manufacturers continually search for ways to increase profits and reduce costs. Trying to find cost savings where chips are made makes sense and is usually where the most-significant improvements are found. However, efficiency gains can also be made in nonvalue-adding areas, like inspection.

Technological advances in cutting tools, machine tools and toolholders have allowed machinists and manufacturing engineers to increase holemaking efficiency by eliminating the number of tools required to produce accurate holes. High-performance drills are the best example of these technological advances. In the past, it was common for a machinist to spot-drill, drill and then ream to achieve accurate hole geometry. Now, the same hole can be made in a single operation using a high-performance drill.

The drive to reduce setup times and operator intervention has led to the proliferation of multitask machines. Multitask machines range in price and complexity from lathes capable of driving rotating tools to large machining centers that can effectively perform the turning and milling operations needed to complete complex parts in one setup.

The importance of mastering fundamental turning skills. Turning and other lathe operations are the most common machining applications. A master tool and die maker once told me a lathe is the only piece of shop equipment that can remanufacture itself. Whether or not the statement is factual is not important. Having the lathe described in that manner indicates how important and universal turning is to manufacturing.

Cutting Tool Engineering's Shop Technology column in October addresses how lean manufacturing principles have changed the way engineers program machine tools and select tooling.