Industry News

Lasers are used in a myriad number of applications to cut, drill, weld, mark, or structure parts in a wide variety of applications in many industrial sectors to optimize manufacturing processes and satisfy the need for ever increasing quality of components.

Marcus Ralston explains his outlook regarding three key milestones of the evolution taking the cutting tool industry into the 21st century.

The costs of cooling lubricants in tool grinding often exceed the costs for grinding wheels. Tool manufacturers who acknowledge this can save money with ultra-fine filtration technology that is optimally adapted to a company’s production capacity and manufacturing requirements. Vomat in Treuen, Germany, is a filtration specialist that offers a range of products that can reduce these costs.

Inovatools USA LLC in Hartland, Michigan, offers a broad product range of high-performance solid carbide mills that meet the exacting requirements in mold, fixture and die manufacturing.

Many machine shops are losing tens of thousands of dollars in company profits each year by not implementing quick-change tooling on mills and lathes. Implementing this technology can easily reduce downtime an hour a day.

A new paper by Forest City Gear engineer Andrew F. Vincent, Ph.D., has been released entitled, A Note on the Design of the Gap Between Helices on a Double-helical Gear. The paper focuses on how the design and how it “imposes a necessary lower bound on the gap between the helices it is meant to produce.”

Making investments to facilitate operational improvements—and financing those investments in a way that preserves cash flow—will be critical to sustainable growth. Here is what manufacturers should consider to make the most of this opportunity when it comes to achieving value from waste streams.

Wear pads between the saddle and the machining bed on lathes and CNC machines are being replaced with a wear-resistant polymer known as Vesconite Hilube

More than a third of manufacturers say the Covid-19 pandemic is a catalyst for increasing automation, and additional drivers for adding and expanding automation include the need for increased productivity and a shortage of skilled workers, according to a new survey from MC Machinery of Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

Despite COVID, reshoring is up in 2020 and by year’s end total numbers should top more than a million jobs coming back to the U.S. in the last decade, according to a new report from the Reshoring Initiative.

September 2020 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $156.1 million. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report collaboration, was up 14.7 percent from August's $136.1 million and down 20.5 percent when compared with the $196.3 million reported for September 2019.

A new line of aluminum tools from Inovatools utilizes the ta-C thin-layered coating that the company says makes the process of machining aluminum and its alloys more productive and cost-effective.

With new advances in abrasive technology, machining center operators are able to complete surface finishing simultaneously with other machining operations, to speed cycle times, improve quality and save on off-line finishing time and costs. The abrasive finishing tools can be easily integrated into CNC machines carousels or tool holding systems.

Don Schumacher Motorsports (DSM) is one of the country’s most successful motorsports companies, both on and off the track. Tooling from Sandvik Coromant helped the company achieve some impressive goals.

Railway machine tool builder needed a robust 5-axis machine to ensure uptime, accuracy, and precision in cutter tool manufacturing

Since the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, manufacturers have dealt with supply chain issues. In this Q&A, two industry leaders discuss the pandemic, the supply-chain and bringing manufacturing back to U.S. shores.

At Emuge-Franken, manufacturers of threading, gaging, clamping and milling technology, sensors and dynamometers from Kistler are used to aid in the development of new precision tools.

Grinding jobs requires strict tolerances. On grinding machines, the tolerances for the dimensions, form and position of finishing processes run tight, and in many cases, shops check these specifications against hard data. Studer machines can use cameras and laser systems to in-process measurements.

The tool and mold industry is designing and specifying ever more complex geometries and freeform surfaces and the industry is placing ever greater demands on clamping technology to accomplished these needs. Zero-point clamping technology from Andreas Maier Fellbach (AMF).helps them meet these challenges.

The ThyssenKrupp Crankshaft Co. in Danville, Illinois, operates up to 21 shifts per week to produce forged crankshafts for the North American heavy-duty automotive, truck, and engine markets. Meeting production needs requires precise technology, including a Zema Numerika GH1500 grinding machine from Junker.