Modern Applications News articles from June 2008

Modern Applications News archives from June 2008

Let's make machining a Girlie profession: isn't it about time to drop our gender blinders about which sex belongs in the shop?(EDITOR'S CORNER)
June 1, 2008... The April cover of MAN [MAN, Vol. 42, No. 4, April, 2008, cover] featured a photo of a woman working with a waterjet at the Engines and Energy Conversion Lab at Colorado State University. It drew the following comment from a reader: ...

February manufacturing technology consumption up 4.4 percent from 2007.(Industry News)
June 1, 2008... February U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $308.5 million, according to the Association For Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association. This total, as reported by companies participating in...

Woman machinist is the first female to compete in NTMA apprentice competition.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Belief in herself took Rachael Locked, 23, a precision machinist at Christopher Tool & Mfg. Co, Solon, OH, a long way--to the National Tooling & Machining Association's 36th Annual National Apprentice Competition, held April 23 through 26 at...

Heidenhain controllers guide a big eye.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... The largest optical telescope in the northern hemisphere, the Gran Telescopio Canarias--Grantecan--located on La Palma, one of the Spanish Canary Islands, began trial operations with Heidenhain model ERA 780C angle encoders used to position the...

Trumpf is first German machine tool company to open a production plant in Japan.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Trumpf GmbH + Co., Ditzingen, Germany is the first German machine tool manufacturer to launch production in Japan. The subsidiary produces automation and warehousing concepts. The new production site is located in Fukushima, 250 kilometers...

Haas opens factory outlets in India.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Haas Automation, Inc., opened two factory outlets in India to accommodate that country's manufacturing economy. One facility is in Bihwadi, near Delhi, the other in Ahmedabad. This increased the number of outlets in India to four, with a fifth...

I want my SME.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has posted more than 60 "viral" videos on YouTube. More than 60 short videos have been uploaded and have gathered more than 200,000 hits. SME videos available for viewing include Lean Manufacturing in a...

AMT gets new president.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Robert K. Simpson will become the President of AMT--The Association For Manufacturing Technology, on October 7, 2008. Simpson will join the association on June 2 and work in transition with President John B. Byrd III, who will retire after five...

The bull of the woods.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... THAT CUTTER SPINDLE HAS A VERTICAL ADJUSTMENT FOR CENTERING THE CUTTERS, AND IS DRIVEN BY A WORM GEAR, AND THE THE CARRIAGE HAS A MICROMETER ADJUSTMENT FOR REGULATING THE DEPTH OF TOOTH TO BE CUT-THE FRICTION DISK WHICH-- THAT LADY...

Wisconsin firm completes $4 million expansion, adds 100 jobs.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Robinson Metal, De Pere, WI, completed a $4 million, 50,000 [ft.sup.2] expansion at its business, adding 100 new jobs. Since 2005, it has increased its staff by more than 50 percent to stay abreast with demand that was created by its...

Siemens expands retrofit effort.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., implemented an initiative in machine retrofits. Siemens is ramping up its Preferred Solution Partner program, through which Siemens CNC, motor, and drive packages will be brought to the machine shop market....

DMG steps into entry-level market.(INDUSTRY NEWS)
June 1, 2008... Hoping to gain market-share in the entry-level machine market, DMG America, Itasca, IL, introduced the CTX ECO series of lathes and the V ECO vertical machining centers. The entry point for the CTX ECO series starts at about $78,400. ...

NexTECH what's on the cutting edge of technology.
June 1, 2008... C-3P0's Great Grandfather Robots have been integrated into industry for decades, but haven't been brought into homes as useful appliances yet. Work at the Shigeki Sugano Laboratory, at the Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering, in...

Finish pass anxiety-part 2: a "twist" of fate, and a tool, creates and solves a mystery and helps alleviate finish pass anxiety.(FROM THE SHOP FLOOR)
June 1, 2008... In my last column [Finish Pass Anxiety, "From the Shop Floor, MAN, May, 2008, Vol. 42, No. 5, p. 14], I was in the testing phase of an Incoloy job. We--Will Campbell, a machinist here at Ansco, and myself--were making steady progress on the...

Eggs and chickens, something must come first: while it may not be art to rival DaVinci's, Leonardo's skills with a CAD/CAM package let him program a job that looked like it would bring in long-term work to his start-up job shop.(LEONARDO'S NOTEBOOK)
June 1, 2008... "Leonardo's Notebook" is an imaginary account of the lessons learned by the fictional Larry Denardo's challenges and solutions in starting his own job shop. When I told my boss, Al Saunders, that I was leaving Code Red Manufacturing to...

Simulation software and new technologies: machine and control simulation, and technologies like Wi-Fi, have moved from emerging technologies into useful tools on the shop floor.(CONTROLLING INTEREST)
June 1, 2008... In the last column ["Simulation Test Drives Provide Detours Around Trouble," Controlling Interest, MAN, Vol. 42, No. 4, April 2008, p. 16], I wrote about some aspects of how a shop's uptime can be maximized. Here are a few more. ...

Counting down to IMTS--Part I: this begins a three-part preview of the international manufacturing technology show, 2008. In this, and the next two issues--July and August--man will highlight the products and events taking place in Chicago from September 8 to 13.(IMTS COUNTDOWN)
June 1, 2008... As the late Ed Sullivan said about his variety hour, "it's a really big shew." No matter how big Ed's "shew" was, the 27th edition of the International Manufacturing Technology Show puts it to shame, and it isn't even starring The Beatles. ...

Stringing along energy development: pipe strings down oil well bores have to be stabilized with collars cut from huge forgings. A manufacturer of the stabilizers incorporated new machines to do the job.(VERTICAL MACHINING CENTERS)
June 1, 2008... Drilling for oil has never been as technically challenging as it is today; yet, petroleum exploration has never been more ambitious. Armed with new high-tech tools and groundbreaking technologies, crews are drilling deeper--much deeper--than...

The right software led to shop success: after striking out on his own, a shop enterpreneur found a CAD/CAM package that saved him time and money, as well as solving "impossible" problems.(CAD/CAM)
June 1, 2008... Being something of a free spirit, John Graney left his father's business, J.G. Machine, Woburn, MA, in 1999 to start his own job shop--Surface Solutions, Ipswich, MA--because "I like doing things my own way," he said. He started with some used...

The proof is in the plastic: three-dimensional printing technology translated scans of the space shuttle tiles for safety evaluation. The same technology allows proof of concept before metal is machined.(MEASUREMENT/INSPECTION)
June 1, 2008... Just after lift-off, August 13, 2007, Space Shuttle Endeavour's Thermal Protection System-TPS--suffered damage due to a strike by foam insulation falling from the shuttle's external fuel tank. Sensors detected damage to the heat-resistant tiles...

Carbide to the rescue: a carbide end mill that finished the job in two hours, instead of three-and-a-half days, ended a backlog for an oil industry manufacturer.(CUTTING TOOLS)
June 1, 2008... Coming in as a new manager to a back logged shop can be an intimidating experience, but as a veteran in the business, Pat McLaughlin was unafraid when he took the reins of Machining and Manufacturing, Houston, TX, a MIC Group subsidiary....

The rule of ones: Implementing Lea Manufacturing concepts and standardizing welding process let a shop decrease downtime and quality variance.(WELDING)
June 1, 2008... Those in a shop environment know how much downtime accrues from changing a welding cell to accommodate different product runs. For OEM Fabricators Inc., Woodville, WI, downtime cost $2,000 a day, until it adopted the "rule of ones," which...

A Swiss turning center turns problems into profits: minimizing turning operations between centers was the goal and a new Swiss turning center met it.(SWISS TURNING)
June 1, 2008... Medieval philosophers once argued about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The people at Metal Craft Machine & Engineering don't worry about angels, they're more concerned with the tiny medical devices that are small enough to...

Blasting cabinet has a 36" diameter turntable.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... The Model SP-10 has a 60"x60"x60" capacity with an automatic sliding door and is equipped with rails and a transfer cart that rolls in and out of the finishing enclosure under power. A 36" diameter turntable on the cart is motor-driven to...

Deburr, polish, clean, and relieve stress in one process.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... The CoolPulse 200 electrolytic deburring and polishing machine deburrs, polishes, relieves stress, and cleans in one finishing process. During the process, stainless steel or aluminum work- pieces are not subject to mechanical or thermal...

Micro-abrasive system for blasting small parts.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... The AccuFlo micro-abrasive blasting system can deburr, clean, and texture small parts. It is equipped with a patented system of mixing air and abrasive to improve flow consistency. The result is control over the volume of powder flowing through...

Micro brushes for tiny deburring.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... Micro/mini brushes are manufactured to tolerances from 0.018" in diameter. Typical applications include microbiology and cytology sampling, cleaning endoscopes and other medical instruments, deburring, and custom-design applications for...

Two deburring tools at 1,600 ipm.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... Two tools are available for producing sheet metal parts that come out of the punching machine burr-free. With the deburring MultiTool, a separate manual deburring stage is no longer necessary. Both tools displace any burr by chamfering the...

Wet Deburring.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... The Tri-Ten Series includes a system that deburrs parts in a wet environment. All motors and electrical components are on the outside of the process cabinet so critical components are isolated from the wet environment. The wet system has a...

Combustible deburring dust caught by wet system.(DEBURRING AND FINISHING)
June 1, 2008... The Wet Deburring Station offers a wet filtration system to capture potentially combustible filings and dust in an air/water mixing zone. By entrapping these particles in water, potential flammability is reduced. After pulling the filings and...

Totes add up to 15 percent more storage capacity.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... RemStore totes optimize space usage in vertical lift modules, and vertical and horizontal carousels, creating up to 15 percent more storage capacity for metalworking storage and retrieval operations. The Catch-Hook design allows access to the...

Material self-lubricating at high temperatures.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... Metcar grades M-199 and M-201 are high temperature mechanical materials for manufacturing bearings and thrust washers. They operate without lubrication in dry and dust-prone environments, and their carbon/graphite copper impregnation increases...

Boring heads come in five range sizes.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... AxiaBore type fine boring heads have a cylinder and flange tool fixing design, which allows for higher machining data and increased productivity, while the indirect barrel locking system ensures the set diameter is not influenced by the locking...

Higher productivity in short-hole drilling.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... The Corodrill 880 is available in diameters ranging from 0.472" to 2.5". The drill offers improved chip evacuation and cutting action made possible through Step Technology. Sandvik Coromant [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

No sparks here.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... A range of brushes made with brass or bronze wire for non-sparking and metal finishing applications are available. Styles include wheel and cup brushes in both crimped and knot wire, wheel and end brushes with 1/4" stems, and power tube brushes...

Sensor has 28mm beam spread.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... The Contrinex LFP-1011-020 flat fiber optic array sensor has a beam spread of 28mm that detects objects in any position across the broad area of light transmission. This multiple beam, diffuse sensor captures, counts, and controls small...

Safe delivery of welding wire to robotic cells.(New Products)
June 1, 2008... The Lowboy drum cart offers 2.3" of ground clearance and a low center of gravity for towing welding wire used in robotic or hard-tooled welding applications. The carts eliminate the need to transport heavy drums with lifting straps attached to...

It's just like free money: cutting the "fat" from business--shedding the unproductive processes that can be embedded and overlooked in a company--can mean freeing money for investment or new business mining.(THE LAST WORD)
June 1, 2008... With the subprime mortgage crisis persisting without end and taking down major institutions like Bear Stearns, we continue to see financial institutions writing off billions of dollars to revalue their mortgage-backed securities. ...