Articles & Columns

I’m not a huge fan of machinist’s vises. Even with a speed handle and a couple cups of coffee in your belly, it seems like it takes forever to crank them open wide enough to change a pair of jaws. And once they’re bolted in place, having to tap them in with a hammer and check them with a dial indicator only adds insult to injury. Surely there’s a smarter way to hold parts in a machining center.

We’re getting lots of random requests for machined parts, and that segment of our business remains busy. One recent example was a business acquaintance of mine who contacted our shop requesting machining work. I had not seen him in a while and wasn’t up to date with his professional activities, but his parts request made it clear he was still freelancing some adventurous projects.

Two rotary axes beat 2' of stacked linear axes. That’s the idea behind the new Twin Turret Generator (TTG) machine tools from Cranfield Precision. According to the company, the TTG machine offers a stiff and thermally stable design that improves machining precision and repeatability.

Lasers are good for far more than slicing sheet metal and defending against alien space invaders. Without them, many of today’s high-tech products would be impossible to manufacture. Microfluidic devices, integrated circuits, medical stents and catheters, automotive fuel injector nozzles are all drilled, milled, surface-textured and ablated via laser micromachining. 

Say “EDM” and most manufacturing folks think mold, tool and die work. Yet sinker, wire and hole-popping EDMs are often employed in conjunction with, or as alternatives to, traditional part-making processes, such as milling and turning. 

Barrel cutters are applied for specialized milling applications, and recent advancements in CAM software expand the use of these tools. Geometrically, a barrel cutter has a large cutting radius on its side that closely matches the curvature of a part’s surface and allows a large step-over between passes. The result is cycle-time reductions of up to 90 percent when finishing while imparting fine surface finishes. 

Ever machined parts so small that they not only fit on a penny but can sit on old Abe’s nose? Cutting parts and part features in this Tom Thumb world often comes with Titanic-sized challenges, such as unexpected cutting tool breakage, deburring parts the size of typical burrs and machine tool spindles speeds that come up short. Sometimes just handling ultrasmall parts is a gargantuan task. 

Early in my stint here, I called Alan Baker, founder of toolmaker A.B. Tools Inc., in connection with an article I was writing about thread milling small-diameter holes. I started the interview with a general question about available thread mills sizes for these applications and was encouraged to first gather that information from Machinery’s Handbook and then call him back. I thanked him before ending the call and turning to the appropriate section of “The Bible of the Mechanical Industries,” published by Industrial Press Inc. 

Want a good reason for lubricating the moving parts of machine tools? Here’s one from Klüber Lubrication NA LP, Londonderry, N.H., a developer of specialty lubricants: Lubrication of machine tool components minimizes wear. “When a component in a machining center wears—whether it’s a spindle bearing, a ball-screw, a gear or whatever—you start to lose precision,” said Steve Mazzola, Klüber’s director of engineering. “And when you lose precision in a machining center, you may produce parts that are out of spec.”

Lately, I haven’t been hearing much about machinist apprenticeship programs. I have been hearing about vo-tech schools, as well as job shops hiring people off the street to just push buttons. Do apprenticeship programs still exist in the U.S.? The answer is “yes!” 

I generally consider myself to be a positive person. However, these past few weeks have tested my resolve. It’s not the roller-coaster daily life as a machine shop owner, but the stark reality of losing employees and friends to serious illness that’s been especially hard to take. Thankfully, illness doesn’t always mean death. 

Every parts manufacturer, regardless of size, has some sort of training program, and programs are nearly as varied as the companies themselves. Whether it’s something as simple as handing out a pamphlet about company policy or as involved as an apprenticeship program, it’s just a given: Where there are employees, there is training. However, while some companies regard it as a necessary evil, others have found that investing in this universal necessity yields substantial benefits—and, in the long run, actually saves money.

Until I started working for Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, lifting parts was never a consideration in daily production. Previously, the parts I dealt with were small, usually never larger than a dinner plate. Lifting equipment, such as forklifts and pallet jacks, were often employed, but only to move raw materials to a machine tool or to load and unload trucks—never as part of the production process. 

END USER: Van’s Manufacturing Inc., (805) 522-6267. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Omegasonics, (888) 989-5560, www.omegasonics.com. CHALLENGE: Reduce the time and cost to clean machined parts. SOLUTION: An ultrasonic parts cleaner with a filtration pump.

END USER: Crowley Tool Co., (615) 824-5594, www.crowleytool.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Schütte LLC, (800) 668-4035, www.schutteusa.com. CHALLENGE: Enhance reliability when grinding round tools. SOLUTION: A new 5-axis CNC tool and cutter grinder with linear-drive technology.

The expression “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” certainly applies to machining. A young programmer in our shop is constantly being run in circles by the whims of those in authority. Newcomers are in a difficult position; they not only lack experience, they generally want to please everybody.

As the plans for more and more machined metal parts include numerical surface finish specifications, the need diminishes to visually qualify that a part has, for example, “a mirror finish with no burrs” or to have the machinist with the finest touch scratch the surface with his fingernail to make sure it’s “matte and rough.”

Arevo Labs hopes its new RAMP leads to better 3D-printed componets for the defense and aerospace industries. Arevo touts RAMP (Robot-based Additive Manufacturing Platform) as the first system of its kind optimized for 3D printing of composite thermoplastic parts. The system includes a 6-axis robot arm and end-effector hardware for deposition. RAMP can accommodate build envelopes from 1,000 cu. mm to 8 cu. m, depending on the size of the robot used. The end effector consists of a deposition head with special thermal management technology for processing carbon-fiber-reinforced thermoplastics.

Without a manufacturing schedule, workpiece materials don’t arrive on time, machine tools sit idle and customers fume. However, scheduling is difficult, especially when multiple-level assemblies and large numbers of components are involved. To meet this need, software companies have developed complex, integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Hundreds of such systems exist, from giant multisite suites able to manage (OEMs’) needs to those suitable for a job shop with a handful of employees. 

One of the most enduring issues in the metalworking world is finding and retaining skilled workers, and the 10th annual Metalworking Trends Survey from LoSasso Integrated Marketing, Chicago, showed that this challenge continues.