General Shop Equipment & Supplies

With so much attention given to improving machining processes, machinists, programmers and engineers at times forget about simple, but necessary, processes like deburring.

By integrating laser-based cutting and, in some cases, welding heads onto their already-capable equipment, Swiss-style lathe builders are taking these machines into bold new territory.

Though machining medical microparts presents many challenges, shops that tackle the task are meeting these challenges thanks to a combination of ingenuity and technology, along with a dose of effective machining practices.

CTE Machinist's Corner Columnist Michael Deren bemoans industrial suppliers who don't care about their customers, or know how to treat their customers. This is not the '60s and '70s, when OEMs had a take-it-or-leave-it mentality.

For many in the machining community, tapping is the preferred method of threadmaking on a CNC machining center. Yet others contend that thread milling is better. Kip Hanson breaks down the long-running argument.

Carefully plan machine setup to virtually eliminate problems that could lead to such tasks as replacing the setup with a new one, reprogramming toolpaths, or even transferring the job to another machine.

By packaging both turning and milling functions in a single machining center, machine tool builders believe they've hit on a winning combination that can boost part quality while also slashing cycle times, space and costs.

Repeat work is great, but shops have to guard against the comfortable complacency that such work can generate at the expense of diversifying its customer base. Said diversification is essential to a shop's growth.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU, Chemnitz, Germany, wanted to study the impact of climate change on machines without having to ship them to far-flung locales. Therefore, the institute developed a climate chamber at its newly inaugurated test lab in which it could expose machines to various climates around the world.

Kitamura Machinery announced its new SUPERCELL-300G 5-axis, horizontal flexible manufacturing cell. It has a 20-station APC with work ID system and 174 tool matrix-style tool.changer.

The latest release of the Radan sheet-metal solution, by Vero Software, includes new functionality giving users a greater degree of manual control where flexibility is required for certain aspects of their individual production processes.