General Shop Equipment & Supplies

My recent past has, unfortunately, included the passing away of several acquaintances, one only 38 years old. I also read an obituary in the local paper about a machinist we formerly employed, a man only in his 50s.r In addition, an employee's wife was diagnosed with cancer, completely changing his priorities. Around this same time, my youngest brother had a medical scare, and my mother fell in her backyard and broke a shoulder, requiring a 4-week recovery and making it almost impossible for her to take care of her 90-year-old mother.r These events have brought a sobering degree of reality into my life. That is, the realization that time marches on for everyone and, eventually, something unexpected will impact our lives and our businesses.

Several weeks ago, my wife and I attended a dinner party at her sister's home. One of the guests heard I was in manufacturing and introduced himself. He's 48, married and has five children and a mortgage. He's a pleasant individual, and we spoke about his trials and tribulations over the last few years. He lost his job during the Great Recession and has since been struggling to find a steady job. Unemployment checks and odd jobs, as well as assistance from their church and friends, have helped his family muddle along. His experience is in customer service and sales.

Real-time measurements during metalcutting can offer significant insight into machine tool performance. The parameters to be measured include position, velocity and acceleration of the axes; cutting force; sound; temperature; and acoustic emission, which is not the same as sound, but rather a high-frequency, structure-borne vibration.

Thermal compensation of a coordinate measuring machine's principle structural components and the part being measured helps ensure measuring accuracy over an extended temperature range when the CMM is installed outside of a temperature-controlled area. Such a temperature-compensation system is comprised of temperature sensors and cabling running through the machine to its controller. The more sensors there are the more accurate the system, but these cables can cause mechanical issues and will eventually fray or break because of the constant CMM motion.

The process of displacing metal instead of cutting it is called many things. But whether they call it form tapping, cold form tapping, thread forming, cold roll forming, roll forming, thread rolling, roll tapping or cold roll tapping, many metalworking professionals are unfamiliar with it, according to Peter Gennuso, applications engineering supervisor for OSG Tap & Die Inc., Glendale Heights, Ill.

The U.S. economy appears to be on the mend. In January, the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation gave a tentative thumbs up to sustained business expansion through the first half of 2013. And the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index rose again in January, painting an optimistic picture. Maybe it's time to buy that machining center you've been thinking about.r Before you whip out your checkbook, though, some homework is in order. There's a lot more to machining centers than spindle speeds and rapid traverse rates. Sure, you've had good results over the years buying machines based on that, but that might be the wrong criteria in this brave new manufacturing world. You're facing growing competition from overseas and down the street, so you owe it to yourself to take a look at what's changed in the years since you bought your tried and true 20"×40" vertical machining center.

The spark gap is the physical distance the electric current has to jump off the wire to burn the workpiece when wire EDMing. Controlling the spark gap is critical to achieving required part dimensions and surface finishes. Variables that impact the spark gap include the workpiece material and thickness, wire diameter and type, and part tolerance and surface finish requirements.r The wire EDM process is physically unstable because of the constant advancement and retraction of the axes. "Wire EDMing does not have or function with a set feed rate like a milling operation," said Brian Pfluger, EDM product manager for Makino Inc. at the company's Auburn Hills, Mich., facility. Wire EDMing requires a combination of small mechanical and, especially, electrical changes to occur thousands of times per second to be stable and consistent, he added. Makino is headquartered in Mason, Ohio.

Adding a 4th-axis rotary table to a machining center is a proven way to boost productivity, reduce setups, and increase accuracy on multi-op parts. Adding a fast rotary table to a fast machine creates a high-speed package that slashes cycles times even further. The HRC210 from Haas Automation is a high-speed, cam-driven rotary table that provides cutting and indexing speeds up to 830 degrees/second.

FANUC FA America introduces FASOPC for easy retrieval of CNC machine production data.

Hypertherm's Centricut brand today announced the release of new consumables for PerCut 210M and 450M torches found on all new and upgraded Kjellberg HiFocus systems.

New quick disconnect torches from Hypertherm's Centricut brand are now available for Kaliburn Spirit and ProLine series plasma systems, providing owners of those products with an affordable alternative.

Sandvik Coromant takes a closer look at the macro trends influencing the future of the manufacturing industry in a brief video report that identifies four areas of special interest: rapid urbanization, sustainability, new advanced materials and new technologies.