Workholding

Tired of your wimpy 5C indexer or NC rotary table giving up its position faster than a politician after an election? Maybe it's time to supersize that commodity indexer.

Hydraulic vises ofer accurate workholding for workpieces large and small.

If your shop is looking for a low-cost, simple and effective way to reduce setup time, consider zero-point clamping.

A unique collet-and-cartridge workholding system for machining small parts.

Regardless of a live center's brand, its quality is acceptable or the center manufacturer wouldn't be in business. In addition, most center designers have kept pace with today's high-horsepower machines, aggressive machining parameters and high-pressure coolant applications to avoid limiting the accuracy and service life of a live center.

Suppose your boss enjoys cooking shows. One day he hands you his design sketch for the latest and greatest pie tin. “Here, make me a prototype,” he says. “I'm entering a pastry contest.” How do you machine this?

Vise jaws that grip as little as 2mm of workpiece material without special tooling or machining a gripping feature.

I once thought nothing of boring a new set of top jaws. Just remove half a dozen cap screws, take the old jaws out, bolt on fresh jaws, attach a spider or boring ring and crank the hand wheel until the part fits. Setups were long in the 1980s and my boss considered 2 or 3 hours of downtime each day a normal cost of business.

The benefits of high-density workholding.

The Workholding column in the April 2013 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine shares the story of a shop facing a machining requirement for finishing small die-cast aluminum engine covers.