Machining

END USER: North Bucks Machining Ltd., +1908-611-669, www.northbucksmachining.co.uk. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Open Mind Technologies USA Inc., (888) 516-1232, www.openmind-tech.com. CHALLENGE: Efficiently rough-machine a mountain bike frame from a solid piece of aluminum stock. SOLUTION: A CAM software's high-performance roughing module.

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.

Being able to broach a blind keyway while keeping the part on the same CNC machine tool used to perform the other machining operations provides a significant improvement in setup, reliability and accuracy, compared to moving the part to a dedicated broaching machine.

Live tooling's capabilities have increased greatly in recent years. From the start, live tooling was added to increase a lathe's usefulness. What many users of lathes and live tooling don't realize is just how useful live tooling has become.

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.

Dear Doc: I installed a variable-speed drive on a cylindrical grinder. The wheels start at 18" and stub-out at 15". Should I increase the rpm as the wheel diameter gets smaller? Read the full report for the Doc's reply.

Have a person familiar with a machine go over it with you. A person showing you how to do something can filter unneeded information, according to the Shop Operations column in the February 2017 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering.

More lathe purchasers are choosing automated material handling options, according to the February 2017 Machine Technology column by Bill Leventon.

There have been days when it was easy to be a pessimist and see the glass as half-empty. But eventually, perhaps when least expected, something provides inspiration and my inner optimism returns. One such event occurred with an employee I'll call "Mario." Manager's Desk Column by Keith Jennings.

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.

It's been a long crusade for many manufacturers: the battle against an out-of-date public perception of manufacturing as dirty, repetitive work that's possibly unsafe and probably a dead-end career path. Two recent surveys show that there's still a lot of work to do in dispelling that myth, while a third survey is more upbeat.

Working in the bleak midwinter while the metalcutting sector transitions through a downturn sounds like a recipe for the blues. But it doesn't have to be. When things are a bit slow, it can be a good time to do some housekeeping and other chores around the shop that get put on the backburner during more active times.