Industry News

Perrysburg, Ohio - April 2020 – As the COVID-19 crisis continues to disrupt the way companies operate, there are many concerns about workplace cleanliness and the health and safety of workers when dealing with the novel COVID-19 virus.

Erie, PA—Eriez® announces the appointment of Brian B. May Co. as the company’s exclusive manufacturing sales representative for the Metalworking market in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Gleason Metrology Systems’ A2LA Accredited Gear Calibration Laboratory has added ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation and invested in new metrology equipment to expand the scope of its gear calibration services.

Wheeling, Illinois – SMW Autoblok, which focuses on the design and manufacture of rotational chucks, stationary workholding, tooling and custom-engineered solutions for the machine tool industry, announced that Shaun Thomas rejoined the Wheeling, Illinois, company as technical operations senior manager.

Accutek Inc., a manufacturer of toolholding and workholding products in Addison, Illinois, announces a partnership with Advanced Tooling Co. as the manufacturers representative agent for the following regions:

With the arrival of Industry 4.0, a new business model is emerging for how part manufacturers acquire machine tools: equipment as a service (Eaas). Graham Immerman, vice president of marketing for Northampton, Massachusetts-based MachineMetrics Inc., effectively covers this topic in his new 12-page ebook/white paper titled “Equipment-as-a-Service: A Brave New World for Machine Tool Builders.” In an interview with CTE, he said, “Instead of buying a machine and fully financing it or paying cash, you can pay as you use it.”

Vollmer of America broke ground on May 11, 2019, at its new location in Findlay Township, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh International Airport. The new 30,000-sq.-ft. building is in its finishing stages and the Vollmer team is getting ready to move to the new facility. Vollmer has announced the dates for its Open House Celebration Oct. 22-23, 2020, at the new building.

Exsys Tool Inc., the exclusive importer of Eppinger toolholders, adapters and specialty products, celebrates its 25th anniversary this June. For a quarter-century, Exsys, San Antonio, Florida, has served as an industry-leading supplier of CNC tooling and tool holders, including innovative products like the Preci-Flex modular toolholding system and a wide range of high-precision live and fixed toolholders for turning centers.

The ramifications from the coronavirus seem likely to loom for the coming weeks or months as the pandemic widens its grip around the world. Rather than bemoan the shelter-in-place orders designed to keep us safe, we at Cutting Tool Engineering are committed to overcoming the obstacles and limitations we now face.

A promotion from Blaser Swisslube, Goshen, New York, challenged U.S. manufacturers to test a Blaser metalworking fluid or to share a user experience to raise funds for the National Robotics League (NRL). The 2019 year-end offer raised $2,000 for the workforce development program.

Materialise Group spin-off RapidFit has deployed a horizontal-arm coordinate measuring machine manufactured by LK Metrology in Derbyshire, U.K., to check the accuracy of bespoke gaging and holding fixtures produced for the automotive industry.

Stockholm-based Hexagon AB, a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions, announced the acquisition of CAEfatigue Ltd., a provider of mechanical fatigue simulation solutions used to improve manufacturing product design, quality and reliability.

Guards on grinding machines are particularly important for ensuring operator safety. Grinding wheels seldom burst, but when they do, there is a great risk of serious injury to the machine operator. Recent studies suggest, however, that the enclosures commonly used in gear grinding machines, for example, could be overdesigned at present. Investigations conducted by the VDW (Verein Deutscher Werkzeugmaschinenfabriken – German Machine Tool Builders' Association) and the Institute of Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) at TU Berlin reveal that it is possible to use safety guards which are up to 70% thinner, depending on the width of the grinding wheel. These findings are leading to changes in ISO standardization.

No one can predict the future of manufacturing, but those who supply tooling, software or equipment are closer to the ins and outs of the manufacturing industry than most. This gives them an almost prescient ability to forecast what’s coming down the pipe, offer recommendations on what manufacturers need to be successful in these turbulent times and help machine shops and fabricators understand which technologies will bring them the greatest bang for the buck.

Birmingham, Alabama-based Motion Industries Inc., a leading distributor of maintenance, repair and operation replacement parts, has promoted Greg Cook to executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective April 1, 2020.

Of unique importance today is the role of post-process metrology to validate the integrity of AM builds. One specific reason for this importance is that many parts produced by AM end up in safety critical applications where end-use functionality is of vital importance. The nature and relative roughness of AM surfaces, whether analyzing individual layers within a build, or the surface of a finished part render conventional metrology solutions somewhat impotent. In this article, I review developments from Zygo including work alongside Richard Leach that allow for hitherto unattainable metrology results, which are being used to enhance the use of AM as a production technology by making validation protocols more efficient.

Burr Oak Tool Inc. is a leading producer of dies used to produce two types of fins for window air conditioners. Evaporator fins on the side of the air conditioner inside the window transfer heat from the inside air to the cold refrigerant flowing through the evaporator coil. Compressor fins located on the side of the air conditioner outside the window move heat from the now hot refrigerant to the outside air. Burr Oak Tool dies progressively stretch and reform the fins through a series of metal forming operations that extrude and reduce the thickness of the fins.

Cresco, Pennsylvania-based Weiler Abrasives, a leading provider of abrasives, power brushes and maintenance products for surface conditioning, announced the promotion of John Hobbs to director, national accounts.

The industrial control robotics systems perform, control and monitor a wide range of industrial operations and automated processes. The objective is to improve the overall quality, reliability and precision of these processes.

I received an email from Lynn Fifer, a retired cutting tool professional and CTE reader since 1967, who shared his recollections about the development of the parabolic flute drill. Fifer said the development occurred in 1950s at the old Mohawk Tools Inc., Montpelier, Ohio, well before he started with the toolmaker in 1967.