General Shop Equipment & Supplies

Discussion of different types of bonds used to make superabrasive grinding wheels. Author provides tables with price comparisons, physical properties and operating parameters for various bonds.

The author offers tips about making interrupted cuts while turning. He also discusses the differences between interrupted cuts in turning and milling and various types of materials.

Salaries earned by metalworking professionals, including machinists, production engineers, manufacturing engineers and corporate managers. Salaries are broken down by region, size of company and type of shop or manufacturing facility.

GE Superabrasives' silver-coated diamond crystal is designed for grinding tungsten carbide. Discussed are the benefits--reduced friction, greater crystal retention and a cooler grinding environment--and how to apply wheels made from the crystal.

Discussion of different types of toolholders for lathes, including collets, drill chucks, bushings and keyless chucks. Author discusses best holder for different applications, based on his experiences.

Author describes applications for the two basic types of ceramic turning inserts–alumina and silicon nitride–as well as the types of parts and materials users have turned with them. Specifics about speeds, feeds and DOCs are given.

One company instituted a comprehensive plan for reducing setup times and saw its average setup time drop from 252 minutes to 39 minutes. The plan involves everything from standardizing tooling to consolidating raw materials to creating families of parts. The author outlines a step-by-step program that readers can apply to their metalworking setup operations.

The author discusses the advantages and proper application of twin-cutter boring tools. They're recommended for rough-boring applications on castings, forgings and other jobs requiring a tool that can bore a cored hole. Details are provided on the three basic types of methods for rough boring with a twin cutter: balanced, stepped and full profile.

The author discusses the disadvantages of using a finishing endmill for roughing applications. He also presents a quick, systematic, step-by-step series of calculations that allows machinists to optimize metalcutting when applying coarse-pitch, cobalt-HSS roughing endmills.

A look at the different types of inserts used for single-point threading and how to figure feed rates for cutting threads on a CNC lathe. Also offers programming tips and recommendations for reducing tool wear.

Establishing a good relationship with your cutting tool salesperson can benefit your operation. A good salesperson can help solve problems you don't have time to tackle and offer recommendations for machining difficult parts. The author also addresses what to do when a relationship sours.

A conversation with Lee Iacocca, chief spokesman and a member of the board of directors of The Online Asset Exchange (onlineassetexchange.com), a service for buyers and sellers of machine tools. Iacocca also is involved with a company that produces electric bicycles. The former president of Ford Motor Co. and of Chrysler Corp. was at WESTEC 2000, where he met with CUTTING TOOL ENGINEERING to discuss manufacturing's role in the economy, his perceptions of the machine tool industry and business-to-business e-commerce.