Medical

Tim St. Martin knew there had to be a better way of fixturing parts on his company's 5-axis machine tools. “We'd visited some of our suppliers and saw how they were holding parts on their 5-axis machines,” said the senior manager of manufacturing engineering for Carlsbad, Calif.-based orthopedic implant manufacturer Alphatec Spine Inc. “They were mounting the blanks into a 'picture frame' and then screwing that frame to a tombstone-mounted fixture. This basically limited access to one side of the workpiece per operation. Many in our company thought we should hold them the same way.”

Continuing and concluding the theme of my previous two columns, this month's installment provides additional tips for enhancing the operation of a manual milling machine.

Provide centerless grinding machines that can produce parts with continually tightening size and surface finish requirements. Customized coolant filtration equipment.

Drilling cross-holes in some parts is no big deal. These are often simple parts, such as aluminum valve bodies, where the holes aren't too deep and meet on-center, and the customer can live with a small burr at the intersection.

X-ray scanning a part with internal features is useful because it creates 2-D images of those features in a nondestructive manner. Industrial computed-tomography, or industrial CT scanning, which is based on X-ray scanning technology, takes it a step further by providing a complete 3-D view for internal and external analysis.

Shop Operations columnist Tom Lipton offers tips for enhancing the operation of a manual milling machine.

Verify and optimize machining operations, including ensuring that cutting tools avoid interference. CNC machine simulation software.

New developments in superabrasive grinding wheels help eliminate the need for dressing them.