Labor is the largest expense in a machine shop, which is why every shop must balance tooling costs and labor efficiency to optimize drilling operations.
The holy grail of tool management is the integration of tool storage, tool data transfer and tool condition monitoring, but many ways exist to keep machines running.
Cutting grooves is one of the more challenging turning operations performed by machinists. Many scrapped parts and broken tools later, Christopher Tate shares important lessons about grooving.
The selection process is often one of trial and error working to optimize the combination of machine, cutting fluid, cutting parameters and grinding wheel.