Toolholding & Workholding

Articles • February 1, 2013 • Kip Hanson

Finding a 5-axis solution

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."

Products • January 13, 2013

Segen Quick change system

Tooling Technology in Fort Loramie, Ohio, is marketing a line of quick-change devices aimed at lean manufacturing. The Segen Quick change system replaces old-fashioned nuts, bolts, fasteners and hand tools, which significantly reduces the time wasted on industrial setups, changeovers, workholding, clamping, fixturing and alignment.

Products • January 13, 2013

TP530 Rotary Table

Catering to the oil, gas and aerospace machining industries, Kitagawa-NorthTech offers the TP530, a new state-of-the-art rotary table with an extremely compact body.

Products • January 13, 2013

centroteX

HAINBUCH America Inc. introduces their quick-change workholding interface system for turning centers.

Products • January 13, 2013

TESTit Clamp Force Measuring System

Imagine the time you would save if you could instantly recall the clamping force measurements from a previously run component. HAINBUCH America Inc. introduces TESTit, which does just that.

Products • January 13, 2013

Genius Vise

OML's new Genius 5-axis vice from Lexair Inc. reportedly turns workholding concepts on their head with a unique design that maximizes clamp force at the top of the jaws by pulling them closed at the top with a collapsing lead screw, while holding the bottom of the jaws in place with an opposing force screw.

Products • January 13, 2013

MaxLock Vises

Kurt announces the expansion of its 5-axis vise offering with the addition of two new MaxLock models.

Products • January 13, 2013

KONTEC KSX NC Vise

The KONTEC KSX NC vise from SCHUNK is a powerful clamping system for simultaneous 5-axis machining.

Products • December 13, 2012

Unilock 5-axis Workholding System

BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc. has strengthened and expanded its Unilock line of 5-axis workholding product offerings.

Articles • December 1, 2012

Good connections

The combination of rigid machine tool and strong spindle connection is ideal for cutting titanium.

Articles • December 1, 2012 • Joe Mason

Meeting the workholding challenge

In my August column, I described several common applications for workholding when turning, where the cutting tool is static and the workpiece spins. There are several standard workholders for turning, which were illustrated.

Articles • December 1, 2012 • Christopher Tate

Achieving flexible workholding

Combustion components from Mitsubishi Power Systems had never been built outside of Japan until Savannah Machinery Works opened its doors in November 2010. We were in the unique and challenging position of having to develop every manufacturing process from scratch while maintaining a tight production schedule.