General Shop Equipment & Supplies

HSK toolholding affects rigidity, accuracy, and repeatability. This guide explains the practical reasons shops choose HSK and what they need to understand before standardizing it.

Researchers using computer simulation and refined probing techniques attempted to mill a pocket as accurately as possible. This report tells how the researchers used their high-tech tools and how close to perfection they came.

This article reports the results of a survey of shop owners. The survey found the executives worried about finding and retaining help and customers and keeping up with technology. It's not all gloom and doom, however. The survey also found respondents upbeat about their business and the economy in general.

Tap and tapholder manufacturers have introduced technology to speed up the inherently slow tapping process. This article reviews a number of innovations, including tension/compression holders for rigid tapping, self-reversing tapping heads and quick-change tapholders.

This report of a Cutting Tool Engineering survey charts the shift in the way shops are purchasing tools. As the survey's findings indicate, an increasing number of tools are being bought directly from manufacturers and many shops are narrowing down the number of tool suppliers they do business with.

This article discusses the reasons students are not choosing to become machinists, and it reviews some of the measures being taken to recruit and train workers for tomorrow's shops. The programs reviewed are designed to encourage an interest in manufacturing, teach shop basics and ensure the quality of those entering the workforce.

Business insurance represents a costly but necessary investment for any shop. This article presents the findings of a Cutting Tool Engineering survey of the liability insurance purchasing habits of readers. The article also offers some guidelines for insurance shopping.

Grinding research has led to innovations in wheels and machines, which have expanded the range of applications grinding can be used for. This article highlights some of the research being conducted and the work that has made it to the shop floor. An accompanying article discusses CBN abrasives.

Graphite electrodes are extremely difficult to machine because of the material's abrasiveness. This article explains why it takes an endmill with a CVD diamond coating and multiple flutes to cut graphite without wearing tool quickly.

Adequate flushing is needed to keep EDM wires from breaking. This article explains why wires break, and how dielectric fluid delivered with sufficient flow and pressure can prevent these failures from occurring even in less than ideal conditions.

To produce graphic electrodes for EDMing large cavities, shops sometimes must machine the piece in smaller sections and bond them together. This article explains how to build and use a bonded graphite electrode so that a ridge at the electrode's bond line can be avoided.

Centralized mineral filtration for wire-EDM dielectric fluid can remove contaminants down to the 1-micron level and dispose of them in an environmentally responsible way. This article describes the mineral filtration process and compares it to the other common filtration methods.