Kip Hanson

OSHA officials have extended an olive branch to small businesses with its Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP), a partnership with those businesses that take safety seriously and respect the health and well-being of their employees. The program is administered through OSHA Consultation.

Most aerospace, defense and medical companies have packaging specifications their parts suppliers must follow to help ensure parts arrive undamaged. But should shops that don't have to follow such requirements ship parts in a similar way?

If you enjoy the growl of heavy milling cuts, the machine-gun sound of chips striking glass and the heady odor of superheated cutting fluid, a compact machining center might not be the right machine for you. Like I used to, you scoff at phone booth-sized machining centers, with their tiny toolholders and tables not much larger than a 6" machinist vise. If so, you're not looking at the big picture.

Vacuum workholding can securely grip difficult-to-hold parts, according to the February 2017 Workholding column in Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

A new breed of 3D printers has begun producing parts made of engineering-grade plastics and fully dense metals suitable for long-term use in a variety of applications. These include jet engine components, engine mounts, medical implants and a host of other products that were once machined or fabricated by conventional means. And, compared to earlier-generation machines, the new additive-manufacturing equipment offers enhanced part accuracy and has lower processing times and acquisition costs.

The tagging applications for radio frequency identification (RFID) are vast, including pets, property—and even people. Recently, Micro-Mechanics Inc., a Morgan Hill, Calif., machine shop, worked with process control equipment provider Caron Engineering Inc., Wells, Maine, to implement an RFID tagging system on its Okuma LB series CNC lathe.

Sam Yu, president and owner of Corona, Calif.-based Machine Control Technologies Inc., said he builds specialty tool and cutter grinders in months—and at a fraction the price of competitors' custom grinders.

We called them "submarines." Tough, 17-4 PH stainless steel forgings shaped like miniature German U-boats, each requiring several ¼" (6.4mm) through-holes to be drilled at a 25° angle. Each sub was loaded into a jig that held it at the required angle, and a metal plate fitted with hardened steel bushings was then clamped to the top of the jig before the holes were produced with a drill press.

Before CNC lathes, most high-volume turned parts were made on multispindle, cam-driven screw machines. Setup times were long, and great skill was needed to design the cams and grind the cutting tools. However, by being able to perform a dozen or more operations simultaneously, they could produce hundreds—often thousands—of parts per hour. Whatever happened to those old mechanical monsters? According to Giovanni Principe, they're alive and well.

Opinions vary on the definition of hard turning. Some industry experts say it's the single-edge cutting of hardened steels from 58 to 68 HRC, while others suggest hard turning begins at 45 HRC and includes hardened irons and superalloys. All, however, agree it presents difficulties but is quite manageable provided the right cutting tools, machine and process parameters are used.

Attendees at the IMTS 2016 trade show may have noticed a number of magnetic "hybrid" signs affixed to several brands of machine tools. The man largely responsible for the signs being displayed is Jason Jones, inventor of the AMBIT laser cladding head and co-founder of Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies Inc., Plano, Texas.

Have a great idea for a machine tool but lack the cash to fund its commercialization? Crowdfund it! That's what Matthew Hertel did when he leveraged a Kickstarter campaign to raise more than $355,000 for the development and creation of his Pocket NC 5-axis milling machine. And then there's the WAZER, the world's first desktop waterjet cutter, which runs $4,499 on Kickstarter, and is expected to be affordable to hobbyists and small businesses.