Measurement

Calibrating a multiple-axis machining center is one of those time-consuming but necessary tasks that parts makers have to accept. The task has gotten easier in past years, however, and has just gotten easier yet.

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.

According to Autonetics LLC, automated gaging units (AGUs) for threads are hot. The Cary, N.C.-based AGU manufacturer reported that it shipped 10 systems in the third quarter of last year to U.S. pipe mills that produce oil country tubular goods. No shipments occurred in the fourth quarter because the industry experienced a downturn, so capital expenditure projects got cut or delayed, noted Jeff Heath, COO of Autonetics. However, he said, the projects are starting to receive funding again. “We have about four in the build phase.”

Where is the field of inspection headed and, more importantly, where do the manufacturers that depend on it desire it to head? In 2014, the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) combined forces with the University of North Carolina-Charlotte to find out.

Around for more than 100 years, air gaging is a mature technology that still has a place in modern shops.

As the plans for more and more machined metal parts include numerical surface finish specifications, the need diminishes to visually qualify that a part has, for example, “a mirror finish with no burrs” or to have the machinist with the finest touch scratch the surface with his fingernail to make sure it’s “matte and rough.”

Shop Operations column for June 2010 Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

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Shop Operations column for the August 2010 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering.