Machining

Products • March 3, 2016

Special Dual-Contact Toolholder

Briney Tooling Systems worked closely with a manufacturer to develop a special dual-contact, CAT 50, stick turning toolholder for an Okuma MacTurn 550 mill/turn center. The customer had some special turning stick tools that were 1.5-inches square and there was no standard for the lathe stick tools.

Products • March 2, 2016

V Series Vertical Lathes

Giddings & Lewis V Series vertical lathes, with tables from 800 to 2500 mm, are a productive addition to any shop floor. Carrying the Giddings & Lewis tradition of robust construction and precision, the V Series is designed with industry-leading functionality and reliability at an affordable price.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • James Harvey

Avoiding machine crashes, part 2

Presented this month are more programming tips to help prevent machine tool crashes.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • Michael Deren

Gaging nonconforming parts

Do you know why your last part run had a high defect rate, why parts from an outside supplier were nonconforming, and what you are going to do with those parts? If your company has a material review board, it can probably answer those questions.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • Kip Hanson

Better Threaders

When CNC wire EDMs came on the market in the mid-'70s, feeding wire from a spool through a machine's elaborate series of rollers and guides was a tedious manual exercise. Luckily, electrical discharge machining was an exceedingly slow process back then, so replacing wire had to be done less frequently than on today's machines, which erode conductive metal 10 to 20 times faster than earlier models.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • Keith Jennings

Improving employee morale

Whether your shop is busy or struggling to survive a downturn, employees are your best asset. We've had to downsize over the past few months, but a good group remains. Many are handling new tasks, but a reengineering of employees' tasks can be beneficial, driving everyone to work smarter, not harder. It is working well so far, thanks to everyone picking up the slack created by the departed employees.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • Pete Tecos

Measuring asset performance

In today's hypercompetitive, globalized economy, businesses are pressured to do more, do it faster, do it right the first time and do it all with fewer resources. The Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 have given birth to asset-monitoring software that should enhance competitiveness in this environment, but it can also be like turning on a waterfall of data that raises the risk of "task overload." Faced with task overload, most people focus on what they think is most important while a seemingly peripheral task is temporarily ignored.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • William Leventon

A control system for quickly programming industrial robots

Teach your robot well: A new control system can reduce the time to set up and program industrial robots from an hour or more to just minutes, according to the Finnish research organization that developed it.

Articles • March 1, 2016 • Alan Richter

Nothin’s going to touch you …

... in these golden years," crooned the late David Bowie in one of his smash hits. The term "golden years" is also used in Albert B. Albrecht's book "The American Machine Tool Industry: Its History, Growth, Restructuring & Recovery," which he revised in 2015 for the third edition. AMT—The Association For Manufacturing Technology sponsored the book. Albrecht defines the golden years of the machine tool industry as being from 1948 to 1998. "It was during this period that the United States machine tool industry led the world in both machine tool production and consumption," Albrecht wrote.

Articles • March 1, 2016

Cool and clean

Hypertherm Inc. designs and manufactures plasma, laser and waterjet cutting systems, as well as CNC motion and height controls, CAM nesting software and consumables. The Hanover, N.H.-based company opened a 165,000-sq.-ft. facility—Hypertherm's newest—in Lebanon, N.H., in 2012. Among other machinery, the facility contains 26 multiple-axis, Swiss-style CNC lathes, which are used in the manufacturing of plasma cutting torch components, primarily electrodes and nozzles. The components are made of nonferrous materials.

Products • March 1, 2016

Swiss Bore Digital Finish

Swiss Tools NA Inc.'s Swiss Bore Digital Finish boring tools range from 0.3mm to 2,200mm (0.012" to 86.614") in diameter. According to the company, the digital-display unit can be used in numerous digital heads throughout a customer's plant. The company also offers Swiss Bore Modular Finish and Twin boring tools and Swiss Flex HSK rotating and turning tools.

Products • March 1, 2016

Ultrafine-grain graphite

Mersen USA offers ultrafine-grain graphite for sinker EDMing. The top-performing DS4, featuring the DarkStar ultrafine-carbon particle, helps users confidently handle challenging EDM operations while saving money, according to the company. The easy-to-machine and strong DS4 imparts a fine surface finish and intricate detail.