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Helical cutters go deep and long in tough materials

When it comes to achieving high material-removal rates in even the toughest materials, it’s hard to beat helical cutters. With the correct insert grades and cutting data, these cutters can achieve far greater depths of cut than non-helical milling tools without sacrificing reach or the ability to hold tolerance. This means higher rates of metal removal at speeds that reduce the time the inserts spend in-cut, simultaneously minimizing cycle times and maximizing tool life.

Stabilizer 2.0 -- Your First Choice in Advanced High Performance Roughing

Double your feed rates with the Stabilizer 2.0 from Niagara Cutter. This family of end mills raises the bar in high performance milling by incorporating a patented continuously varying asymmetrical geometry which helps create a smooth, chatter free milling condition. Watch as it performs high performance optimized roughing in 4140 steel.

Admitting my mistakes

I received an email from a reader letting me know that he disagreed with my recent article on tapping versus thread milling. In it, I stated, “There’s little chance of successfully thread milling metals much above 45 HRC. And if you’re going to try to tap them, be prepared to duck the flying shrapnel when the tap explodes!” We all make mistakes. So when Tom Fares, president of TNT Custom Equipment in Stow, Ohio, called me out on that section of the article, saying that he routinely taps holes in 45 HRC steel alloy and thread mills into “the low 60s,” I listened to what he had to say.

Conventional versus climb milling

For all practical purposes, says Bob Warfield of CNCCookbook.com, manual machinists always use conventional milling and CNC machinists always use climb milling. "Most of us do one or the other, and seldom change," he observed, but is that right?"

Short answer: it usually is for manual machinists, but things are bit more complex for CNCers, Warfield reports in the 14th episode of the CNC Chef video series, titled "Conventional versus climb milling."

'Perfect' combination for structural parts

The optimal machine tool plus the optimal tool equals the perfect combination. And that makes cost-effective processes and impressive machining results possible. One good example of this is the cooperation between the machine manufacturer, F. Zimmermann GmbH, and MAPAL. For demonstrations and machine acceptance tests, Zimmermann equips its new horizontal machining center with milling cutters from MAPAL.

Stepping up to the challenge

04/09/2018
Author:
CTE Staff
END USER: Ansco Machine Co., (330) 929-8181, www.ansco-machine.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: DP Technology Corp., (800) 627-8479, www.espritcam.com. CHALLENGE: More efficiently program large mill-turn vertical turret lathes. SOLUTION: CAM software that can program complex mill-turn parts using subprograms.
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