American Machinist articles from February 2006

American Machinist archives from February 2006

The other side of belt-tightening.(publisher's perspective)
February 1, 2006... At age 50, the average American man weighs about 185 pounds. If he gains 9.9 percent in a year, he's now up to 203. If you put on that much weight in that short a time, your clothes don't look good on you, and you're uncomfortable in your...

Maximizing coolant endurance and economy: shops that look to extend coolant life and minimize costs need to institute a comprehensive program.(coolants)
February 1, 2006... Most shops, especially those with either large or numerous small coolant systems, want to make their coolants last indefinitely, and want to reduce waste and minimize the cost of fluid maintenance. To reach these goals, they not only must use...

Software keeps mold shop competitive.(case books)
February 1, 2006... U.S. mold shops constantly must produce high-quality molds while keeping their production costs low to compete against overseas manufacturers, and Marland Mold (www.marlandmold.com) in Pittsfield, Mass., is doing that. However, in addition to...

Financial rewards found in old tools.(case books)
February 1, 2006... The Tool Usage Program from Custom Carbide of Forest Park, Ohio, is designed to help reduce new tool purchases by as much as 50 percent by transforming cutters that otherwise would be scrapped into new tools at reconditioned prices. Custom...

Software supercharges engine design.(case books)
February 1, 2006... S&S Cycle (www.sscycle.com), an aftermarket and OEM supplier in the American motorcycle industry, envisioned celebrating an upcoming 45th anniversary by creating its biggest production street-use engine ever, a 145-cubic-inch model. However,...

Tooling boosts productivity eight-fold.(case books)
February 1, 2006... Brighton NC Machine (www.brightonnc.com) in Brighton, Mich., is a low-overhead shop that is constantly striving to improve its efficiency through any means that make its machining processes better, faster and cheaper. But for one demanding job,...

Material change increases productivity and cuts costs.(case books)
February 1, 2006... Machinability at G.W. Lisk Co. (www.gwlisk.com) posed a problem with two different alloys specified for two critical parts the shop made for use in high-temperature applications. A well-known manufacturer of solenoids, valves, linear variable...

Indexable tooling can't cut it; solid-carbide cutters step in.(case books)
February 1, 2006... Machining the helical pelletizer rotors that are used to cut plastic into pellets was taking way too long at Great Lakes Industrial Knife Co. (www.glknife.com) in Akron, Ohio. The company manufactures high-end industrial machining knives in...

Workholding system speeds-up setups.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... Kurt Manufacturing Co. (www.kurtworkholding.com) introduced a zero-point workholding system that the company says results in fast, accurate and repeatable workholding setup changes. The company says its VB DockLock integrates with workholding...

Step chuck collet closers.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... 5C step chuck collet closers from Lexair Inc. (www.LexairInc.com) are made with threaded noses and designed to accept standard 5C collets up to 0.6875-in. diameter, 5C step chucks up to 6-in. diameter and expanding 5C collets for I.D. holding....

Collets for through-coolant tooling.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... Rego-Fix (www.rego fix.com) offers CF coolant flush collets that the company says can be used with its powRgrip toolholding system, and the company says they are compatible with its PG 10, PG 15 and PG 25 series of toolholders. CF collets have...

Modular clamps.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... Mitee-Bite Products Inc. (www.miteebite.com) says its low profile slotted modular Pitbull clamps have special risers to support workpieces off machine tables for through milling and drilling. They also can clamp workpieces in series by using...

Coolant collets.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... 100TG Coolant Collets from NT Tool Corp., Franklin, Tenn., (www.nttoolusa.com) have a one-piece steel design with short slots to prevent coolant from reaching the collet face. The company says this feature eliminates the need for seals, and...

Hydraulic vises for short-cycle production.(Tooling and workholding)
February 1, 2006... Bock Workholding Inc., Ford City, Pa., (www.bockworkholding.com) says its hydraulic Twin Vises shorten loading times and reduce operator fatigue in high-production, short-cycle applications. The manual or machine-program-activated systems are...

Diamond-tipped inserts.(Cutting products)
February 1, 2006... Optional PCD tips are available for Backdraft and Xpet inserts from Dapra Corp. (www.dapra.com). The company expects the life of the diamond-tipped inserts to be about 100 times that of TiAlN-coated inserts in most aluminum and graphite-milling...

Carbide drills.(Cutting products)
February 1, 2006... Big Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc. (www.bigkaiser.com) offers Quadro 15 Plus carbide drills for drilling long-chipping materials, such as steel and cast iron, and nonferrous materials. The Quadro 15 Plus drills are based on the company's Quadro...

Miniboring bars.(Cutting products)
February 1, 2006... AB Sandvik Cormant, Sandviken, Sweden, (www.sandvik.com) says its new CoroCut MB (minibar) boring bars can cut internal grooves in holes to 10-mm (0.39370 in.) diameter. The tools are available with a range of insert widths from 0.7 mm (0.02756...

Industry/government/military machining initiative.(Company news)
February 1, 2006... The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences has awarded contracts worth $2.4 million to fund the second phase of the Smart Machine Initiative. Established by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences in 2004, the Smart Machine...

New execs at tooling company.(Company news)
February 1, 2006... Carlos M Cardoso was named president and chief executive officer of Kennametal Inc. (www.kennametal.com) replacing Markos I. Tambakeras, who is now executive chairman of Kennametal's board of directors. Prior to his appointment, Cardoso was...

New source for bar feeders and parts cleaners.(Company news)
February 1, 2006... Hydromat Inc., St. Louis, (www.hydromat.com) formed a new division--Edge Technologies-to supply its FMB line of bar feeders and its Durr Ecoclean series of parts-cleaning systems. Kevin Meehan has been named the division's general manager.

Cool drilling: 3 key factors for increased productivity.(drilling)
February 1, 2006... Making productivity gains in drilling holes may not seem to be the most challenging machining problem, but there are three factors above all others that can affect drilling speed, tolerance and tool life: 1. Coolant 2. Spindle speed...

Need a tool to help you improve?(from the editor)
February 1, 2006... There is a well-recognized process for business improvement, and it's surprisingly simple: (1) Measure key performance indicators so you know what's what. (2) Compare your measurements to others--benchmarking--so you know what to work...

Kit cuts consumable costs: today's technology bolts onto yesterday's EDMs for quick, inexpensive machine maintenance.(edm)
February 1, 2006... Jeff Belyk dreaded having to change the carbide power-feed contacts on his old-model Mitsubishi wire EDM, and he wished the necessary maintenance job was as easy and fast to do as it was for his newer machine from the same builder. He got his...

The uncertain environment or continued China trade.(government matters)
February 1, 2006... 2005 was a significant year regarding export controls, particularly for the rules that determine what is--or is not--legitimate trade with China. What did not happen, however, was more important than what did. From last summer to the end of...

Chips-n-burrs.(Cartoon)
February 1, 2006... "Maybe this multitasking stuff isn't so bad after all." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

E-media updates keep pace with manufacturing.(leading indicators)
February 1, 2006... Visit www.americanmachinist.com for current news and events focusing on machine tools and technology. You also can find calculators and a search engine created to make your job easier, case studies, industry polls, supplier lists, our...

The trade picture brightens.(leading indicators)
February 1, 2006... The chart above shows that, adjusting for changing prices, U.S. merchandise exports have grown faster 26 percent) than imports (20 percent) since the end of 2002. This has been true for capital goods, autos and consumer goods. Looking at 2006,...

Unfounded testimony wins new trial.(law & liability)
February 1, 2006... Forrest v. Beloit Corp., 424 F.3d 344 (3rd Cir. 2005), U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, Sept. 16, 2005. On Nov. 30, 1999, Paul Forrest, an employee of Jefferson-Smurfit Corp., was seriously injured when tried to clear a jam in a gloss...

Fully automated EDM hole drilling.(machine of the month)
February 1, 2006... Micro EDM production-drilling systems from Ann Arbor Machine Co. (www.annarbormachine.com) tackle hole sizes from 0.004 to 0.035 in. in diameter, maintain size variation to [+ or -] 0.0001 in., produce surface finishes down to 16 Rms and hold...

EDMs spotlight accurate C axes.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... Charmilles added C axes to its line of Roboform 350/550 die sinker EDMs to increase their performance and to provide new EDM capabilities to manufacturers of molds and turbine blades and for parts that require helicoidal machining. The...

Parts washers handle large parts.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... Almco Inc. introduced a new rotary part washer that features a 6-ft. turntable designed to accommodate 2,500 lbs. of large metal parts or batches of smaller parts for cleaning. The three-stage, Model RCWR-72E parts washer is designed with a...

Protect test equipment from vibration.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... Kinetic Systems designed its Series 9211 personal vibration isolation workstations to be stable bases for roundness checkers, surface profilometers, balances and other equipment used in a variety of industries. The workstations feature the...

Oil/coolant cleaners provide fine filtration.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... Keller Products Inc. designed its PFA-1030 portable pump and filter unit to remove extremely fine solids from sumps. The company says the portable units can be used to maintain machines used to cut, and fabricating medical device components and...

Bar feeder functions reduce vibration.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... LNS America says its Hydrobar Sprint 555 bar feeders incorporate hydrostatic and hydrodynamic principles that allow users to cut up to 12-in. bar stock at maximum spindle speeds without dangerous vibrations. The company says the machines are...

Collect alarm information.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... The Industrial Performance Analyzer (IPA) module from Copa-Data is designed to analyze data for the company's zenOn supervisory control and data acquisition software to reduce downtime and increase plant performance. The analyzer module records...

Portable rack scale.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... New, portable scales from Alliance Scale Inc. can be used to weigh rod, tubular and bar stock up to 12,000 lbs., and can be used to transport the stock to machinery or storage bins. The scales are mounted on heavy-duty, smooth rolling casters...

Collet design extends use.(new equipment)
February 1, 2006... NT Tool Corp. has introduced a line of collets that can deliver coolant in tools at up to 1,000 psi. The patented 100TG Coolant Collets have a one-piece, steel design with short slots that prevent coolant from reaching the face of the collet....

Pocket milling gets some relief.(practical ideas)
February 1, 2006... My idea eliminates the conventional "Mickey Mouse" ears when machining corner reliefs in pockets. I reposition the centers of corner-relief diameters and produce neater reliefs with built-in safety factors that keep insert corners from touching...

What's old is new again.(practical ideas)
February 1, 2006... Instead of discarding worn crankshaft-grinding wheels, I re-use them for a variety of other parts such as axles, camshafts and gearshafts. Crankshaft manufacturing requires large-diameter wheels for pin and journal grinding, and for heavy-duty...

50 years ago in American machinist: new auto technologies: one miss; one hit.(retrospective)
February 1, 2006... The editors reported that the "turbine research people" were saying that two big problems had to be solved before gas turbine engines could be used in mass-produced automobiles--fuel economy and the production of turbine blades in "sufficient...

Productivity in U.S. manufacturing (output per hour).(retrospective)
February 1, 2006... From the 1950s through the mid-1970s, the majority of productivity gains in manufacturing were derived from gains in labor efficiency. From the 1970s through the 1990s, productivity gains were made through the adoption of new technology,...

Chips-n-burrs.(retrospective)(Cartoon)
February 1, 2006... "If we were in charge, they wouldn't call it a controller." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Move over machine tools, here come robots: smooth translations catapult robots into five-axis machining cells.(robots)
February 1, 2006... There is a classic failure to communicate in the machine shop. Robots run on brand-specific languages all their own, while conventional CNC machine tools read G-code generated through CAM software. But what if a robot's control was programmed...

Insert technology cuts costs for carbide thread chasers.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... The need for carbide thread chasers grew as screw machine operators turned to new, harder materials to meet their customers' needs. Now, several inventors have developed a line of thread chasers that they say can reduce the cost for carbide...

Dry ice cleaning system developed for small molds.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... The dry ice blasting technology that has been used to clean the large molds used to make automotive components and tires now is available for smaller and more intricate molds. Cold Jet LLC (www.coldjet.com), the leading provider of dry ice...

Hydromat Inc. launches Edge Technologies for bar feeders.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... Hydromat Inc. (www.hydromat.com) launched a stand-alone division that will be responsible for the company's line of bar feeders, its line of parts cleaning systems and additional products in the future. Edge Technologies...

Techniks CoolFLEX tool holders.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... Techniks Inc. (www.techniksusa.com) developed a new line of toolholders that provide machinists the ability to switch coolant paths from coolant-thru-spindle to DIN style coolant by removing two setscrews. The company says the switching...

Monitor automation systems.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... GE Fanuc Automation Americas Inc.'s (www.gefanuc.com) says its Proficy Change Management Version 5.50 is designed to be better integrated with other GE Fanuc products, to provide support for new programs and devices, and to provide more...

Autodesk launches program to recognize inventors.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... In a program designed to recognize the most innovative design and engineering advancements made by its customers, the software and services company Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) launched an "Inventor of the Month" program in January. ...

Software plug-in for Six Sigma projects.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Vocal control system developed for the shop floor.(technology trends)
February 1, 2006... VLH Controls Inc. (www.vlhcontrols.com), a relatively new company that develops computer-based vocal recognition systems, introduced a wireless system designed for use in metal fabrication and other factory operations. The company says its...