General Shop Equipment & Supplies

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. If so, you're not looking at the big picture.

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.

Vacuum workholding can securely grip difficult-to-hold parts, according to the February 2017 Workholding column in Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

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.

What would you do if you won a waterjet cutting machine? In John Mullett's case, he asked for a bigger one. Mullett is owner of Laureate Machine & Automation LLC, Leipsic, Ohio. He won one of two machines given away by WARDJet Inc. as part of the Tallmadge, Ohio-based waterjet builder's Build It! Challenge competition that took place during the IMTS 2016 trade show in Chicago.

It's been a long crusade for many manufacturers: the battle against an out-of-date public perception of manufacturing as dirty, repetitive work that's possibly unsafe and probably a dead-end career path.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. Investing in automation and other productivity-boosting equipment can also be wise during a soft stretch.

Down, but getting back up: December 2016 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $176.04 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT — The Association for Manufacturing Technology. This total was up 4.4 percent from November's $168.69 million and up 12.5 percent when compared with the total of $156.49 million reported for December 2015, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report collaboration. With a year-to-date total of $2.042 billion, 2016 is down 4.3 percent when compared with 2015.

It's always encouraging to read an article about a thriving machine shop, such as one by Cori Urban presented at MassLive.com. Gary T. O'Brien, president and owner of Knight Machine & Tool Co. in South Hadley, Mass., keeps his maternal grandfather's oak toolbox in his office. Andrew Kriesak worked at the Van Norman Machine Tool Co. in Springfield as a machinist, and the toolbox is, for his grandson, a symbol of success.