Cutting Tools & Tooling

Articles • January 1, 2000 • Kip Hanson

Lowering Your Grades

Article discusses the disadvantages of carrying too many grades of carbide inserts. Often, using a less-than-optimal grade can save a machine shop money.

Articles • September 1, 1999 • Mike Principato

A Cut Above

Toolmakers are constantly introducing advancements to improve the metalcutting process. This article examines trends in five key areas where toolmakers are concentrating their research and development efforts.nn

Articles • June 1, 1999 • Kip Hanson

Ready, Preset, Go

This article reviews the basics of coordinate systems and machine programming as a basis for presetting tools. The process for setting tool offsets is described with an explanation of the G-codes involved. In an accompanying article, the author tells how his company built its own presetter.

Articles • April 1, 1999 • Martin Eastman

Inserts Show Their True Colors

Insert manufacturers have devised color-coding schemes to help users select the right tool for the job. This article explores the thinking behind these schemes and the toolmakers' efforts to design tools for the specific applications defined in their selection systems.

Articles • March 1, 1999 • Martin Eastman

Frenzied Feeding

By changing the nose radius of their finish-turning inserts, toolmakers are producing wiper inserts that allow machinists to turn workpieces at increased feed rates. This article explains the theory behind this innovation and describes the specific wiper-style geometries employed by three manufacturers.

Articles • December 1, 1998 • Martin Eastman

Learning With an Edge

Using his students as researchers, an industrial-arts teacher sets up an experiment to test claims being made for tool resharpening using cubic boron nitride wheels. The experiment taught the students how to keep a log of tool conditions, use and sharpenings as they gathered data for their study.

Articles • October 1, 1998 • Paul H. Cohen

Cryogenics Goes Deeper

A new cryogenic tool treatment subjects tools to minus-320-degree temperatures by immersing them in a bath of liquid nitrogen. This article details the procedure and offers test results from the laboratory and the field that show how the treatment can extend tool life.

Articles • August 1, 1998 • Melissa Kennedy

Tooling Trends

This article provides a review of the research and technology trends that will shape metalcutting in the years to come. Innovations in workpiece materials, coatings, machine tool design and nontraditional machining are explored.

Articles • June 1, 1998 • Martin Eastman

All Together Now

This article looks at the close partnership forged between a toolmaker and a machine tool manufacturer. The alliance requires the two to share detailed information about proposed products as well as the customers each is working with. Such cooperation has made it possible to develop several new products and processes.

Articles • March 1, 1998 • Tim Malone

Harder, Faster

The growing use of difficult-to-machine materials has driven the metalcutting industry to high-performance tools. This article reviews the trends that are behind most cutting tool research today, and it looks at the state-of-the art results of that research.

Articles • March 1, 1998 • Karl Katbi

Top-Form Geometry

This article makes the argument that an insert is really a system made up of a combination of factors. The focus of the article is on one of these factors: the top-form geometry, which has evolved from the chipbreaker designs used primarily on turning inserts. The roles these geometries play and the selection process for choosing the right geometry are explained.

Articles • August 1, 1997 • Phillip Craig

Behind the Carbide Curtain

Many end users would like to see carbide tool standards that would ensure consistent quality in tools from shipment to shipment or between manufacturers. Today's C and ISO designations do not provide this assurance, according to this article. The article looks at the problems that arise because of a lack of standards and the attempts being made to guarantee consistent quality in the shop.