The Challenge 
The challenge was to achieve both hard and soft cost savings, as well as time spent on drilling flanges from one side, chamfering the backside and creating a controlled chamfer on the top surface which was a secondary process.

The Solution
We designed an indexable drill with our rear cutting carbide deburring insert along with a fixed pocket chamfer insert to create the precision top chamfer that was required. The spade drill insert also had a special feature that allowed it to chamfer the top side of the bottom hole that was pre-drilled.

The Results
​Four operations were completed in one pass.

The EZ Burr Burr-Free Drill drilled the hole, deburred and chamfered the back all in one step, thus eliminating the secondary step of chamfering the bottom surface on the top hole.

This saved time as well as money, plus the tool life of the Burr-Free Drill achieved a more consistent result and had a longer tool life than the previous method.

This article is about Blue Photon Technology and Workholding Systems LLC  and how Post Processing; 3D printing presents challenges in workholding for finish machining.
Written by Mark Kirby AM Business Manager, Renishaw Canada

Metal 3D printing can enable rapid, low cost iterations of new medical devices, since no tooling costs are involved. All devices need testing to uncover problems and develop solutions—allowing the product shape to change “for free” is a powerful advantage with Additive Manufacturing (AM). Other benefits flowing from AM besides enabling more complex geometry are improved accuracy with no component tolerance stack up, and a simplified supply chain with reduced part count.

Plastic printed jaws are often a good first option, as they are cheap to manufacture—typically in just a few hours on a desktop printer, and can conform to complex geometries (although the design of the jaws can be more time consuming than a simple Boolean subtraction of the component from the plastic). When the design changes after product testing it is easy to print a new set of jaws.
​
The main disadvantage of plastic jaws is that they will often distort the component as they are tightened. Although the jaws hold the part rigidly for machining, when the component is released from the fixture any machined bores may no longer be perfectly round, and true positions of features will have moved slightly as the component relaxes back into its unloaded shape.

The tracker body was monolithically printed in titanium alloy  Ti6-4, stress relieved and then cut from the build plate ready for finish machining of the kinematic mount and the four posts that hold the optical reflector globes.
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A plastic set of jaws was designed to clamp the part while leaving the machining areas exposed. Although the plastic jaws clamp the part rigidly, they never clamp the part repeatably, so the exact position of the part must be found using a machine probe and best fitting software such as NC-PerfectPart, from Metrology Software Products Ltd. (MSP). Originally developed for machining of high value aerospace and Formula 1 composite structures, this software is perfectly suited to the challenge of precisely locating an organic-shaped AM part with no obvious datum features.

Points are selected on the component in the CAD environment and the deviations from nominal positions are measured by the probe on the CNC machine. The NC-PerfectPart software then creates a best fit alignment that is a 6-axis coordinate transformation—both translation and rotation. This coordinate shift is automatically recalled into the machine controller before CNC programs are executed.

Unfortunately, the hip tracker component flexed imperceptibly when the plastic jaws were clamped, resulting in true position errors greater than 0.3mm on the machined posts. While the component had been optimized for handling loads during surgery, it had not been designed to resist machining forces.
In order to machine the part accurately it was essential not to bend it with mechanical clamping, but at the same time it was equally important to add rigidity.

The solution was to use Blue Photon’s UV activated adhesive and grippers. By gluing the part onto four gripper posts (that transmit UV light to cure the glue in approximately 90 seconds) the hip tracker was held firmly but still in the free state.

An aluminum block was machined to hold the four gripper posts in the correct positions for the tracker body. Initial machining was successful on the three posts directly bonded to the grippers, but one post was cantilevered above the gripper and vibrated during machining. A plastic support block was printed to hold this post and eliminated this problem. By cradling the part, the support block also allowed for more accurate positioning of the tracker prior to the glue being cured. The glue thickness is optimally around 1mm, and after machining the part and fixture can be separated by simply immersing the assembly in near boiling water for a few minutes, and then peeling apart.

The only disadvantage of using the glue grippers appeared to be the extra work to design and machine the gripper fixture. However, on a subsequent project for an industrial impeller Renishaw used plastic printing to produce the gripper fixture instead of machining. This proved that the manufacture of a robust, custom workholding solution can be reduced to an overnight desktop print.

The procedure for a patient specific medical device like a cranial plate would be as follows. The number and placement of the grippers would be determined by the manufacturing engineer. “Preserve” regions would then be defined around each gripper as a cylindrical “bushing” with obstacle clearance regions extruded axially above and below each gripper to allow for insertion and captive nut placement.

​The cranial plate is also defined as an obstacle that must be avoided. A preserve ring would be defined, and constrained, to enable the completed fixture to be held in a chuck. Loads are added to the gripper bushing preserve regions to represent machining forces that must be resisted. The software can then solve the structural connection of all the parts for maximum stiffness.

One of the barriers to adoption of patient specific solutions is the high design cost typically involved. Using generative design coupled with plastic printing is an innovative solution that largely automates the workholding process with Blue Photon’s adhesive grippers.

Double Tracking means that the knurling wheels are not tracking properly. In this situation, the knurling wheels will create a different pattern than the original design and may overlap or "double die"

There are two main causes of a knurling tool double tracking: 

1. The knurl wheel isn’t set deep enough into the workpiece.  Dorian Tool recommends increasing the depth. The knurl depth should always equal 35% of the knurl pitch.
2. The circumference of the work piece blank is not a multiple of the knurl pitch. To correct this, you must change the before-knurl diameter of the part or select a knurl wheel with a different pitch.

Dorian Tool  has developed a “Knurling Calculator Spreadsheet” that can calculate all of the parameters to avoid double tracking.

If you would like to request an electronic copy send us a note in the comments section below or, for faster results, in the form you get when you click the button below.  We'll quickly get a spreadsheet sent over to you!

EZ Burr was tasked with deburring a series of internal ribs in a very long high-silicon aluminum engine block. A special extra-long (14” OAL) Carbide Series tool with a rear cutting only inserts was required to get down into the internal ribs for the deburring. 

​If that where the only parameters to that need to be met it would be a challenge.  The customer also needed cycle time to remain at 12-15 seconds while running at 1250 RPM and 15.750" IPM. 

EZ Burr had to make an extra length tool that could handle these cutting conditions without adding any cycle time to the process. The insert had to produce a clean, smooth surface and run a consistent number of blocks each and every shift.

The initial testing resulted in a built up cutting edge on the inserts. EZ Burr's solution involved working closely with thier coating vendor to apply the perfect coating to the inserts to get the desired results.

​In the end, the tool design, cycle time and performance all met the stringent requirements as specified by our customer. We also made sure to always have a batch of these specially coated inserts ready for release at our local distributor, and enough long reach arbors on hand at EZ Burr to have ready to deliver in less than 2 weeks.

If you have an unique deburring application, get in contact with one of our F&L Technical Sales team members!  We'd love to help you out!

Hannibal Carbide has assembled a very nice overview of some common problems associated with carbide reamers and how to avoid them.

​McLean, Va. (April 8, 2019) – Manufacturing technology orders totaled $337.2 million in February 2019 accounting for a 15 percent decline from January and a seven percent decline from the previous February, according to the latest USMTO report from AMT. The year-to-date total was $735.2 million, less than one percent off the year-to-date total at this point last year.
 
“It’s important to look at the February numbers in context. It’s true that order levels declined, but from the second strongest January in the history of the USMTO program. They’re still at good levels compared to this time a year ago,” said Douglas K. Woods, President, AMT. “Other indicators signal continued manufacturing strength. AMT members are generally positive heading into the second quarter; the U.S.-China tariff negotiations look to be moving toward a successful conclusion; and the March ISM Manufacturing PMI showed expansion which beat analysts’ expectations and rallied the stock market. However, uncertainty lingers on issues such as tax, trade and the budget, and continued inaction in Washington could stall already sluggish growth.”  
 
While companies in many industries reduced their orders in February, the nearly 50 percent decline in orders placed by the Aerospace as well as Engine and Turbine industries led the downturn between January and February.  The Automotive sector recorded a modest double-digit uptick. Bucking the general trend, February 2019 had a notable expansion in orders from Commercial and Service Industry Machinery Manufacturing such as Water Treatment and Commercial Cleaning Equipment. The big gain was the result of large orders in the Great Lakes area and the West. 
  
Four of the six USMTO regions had fewer orders in February than January, with the largest decline coming from the Southeast. In the West, metal cutting orders rose slightly. However, declines in Forming and Fabricating lead to roughly stagnant orders compared to the previous month. The South Central region outperformed all other regions, with orders expanding by over a third from January 2019 led by growth in Oil & Gas, Contract Machining, and Food Processing Equipment sectors.
 
Capacity utilization had a second month of declines in February, settling at 77 percent, off the post-recession high of 77.8 percent in December 2018. Despite an increase in orders from the Automotive Sector, Light Vehicle Sales rebounded to 17.477 million annualized units in March. March Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® registered a Purchasing Manager’s Index of 55.3 percent, an expansion of 1.1 percentage points over February, signaling underlying strength in the manufacturing sector.

Cold Forming Taps, also called Roll Taps, create threads by extruding the material in the drilled hole up into the thread form instead of removing material.  This leads to a stronger thread because the material rearranges the material in the hole. Tap life is also increased because you are forming the thread instead of cutting the thread so there is nothing to wear out at the cutting edge.

Roll Form Taps are en excellent choice for nickel based alloys that are prone to workhardening.  The cold forming process causes the substrate material grain structure to be re-arranged and "squeezed" into the thread form. This cold working will increases the hardness of the substrate material.

The following information is courtesy of Allen Benjamin .

Horn USA is very excited about their future home!
They would love if you stopped back here to check in on their progress!

The HHorn USA construction camera was installed on September 11, 2019.  The construction camera takes pictures at the top of every hour.  An image taken within the past hour will load first.

Feel free to use the camera controls to view any of the images that are archived and feel free to share this page.

If the preview does not load, please visit the Horn USA public page on EarthCam.

MCLEAN, Va. (December 9, 2019)
U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $376 million in October 2019 according to the latest U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology.

October orders increased 2 percent over September 2019. New orders placed in October 2019 fell 21 percent from October 2018, which was one of the best Octobers in USMTO history.

Despite month over month gains, the gap between the year-to-date totals grew larger with the addition of October data. Orders placed to date in 2019 totaled $3.75 billion, a decrease of 18.4 percent from the annual total through October 2018.

The industrial machinery manufacturing sector experienced robust growth in October 2019. Orders from machine shops grew at a modest pace but have not returned to their later-summer levels. The automotive sector increased orders by about 40 percent in October, while the aerospace sector decreased orders by slightly over ten percent.

“Since March, job shops have accounted for an unusually large share of orders, reflecting the fact that large players deflected capital spending decisions to their sub-tier supply chain,” said Douglas K. Woods, president of The Association For Manufacturing Technology. That trend began a reversal in October, however, as companies of all sizes placed orders.

Our research and the data point to a shifting of capital investment activity from small companies downstream to tier two and one suppliers. Based on quotations activity, orders in November and December are likely to be from larger companies expiring their capital spending budgets rather than small manufacturers continuing to invest at their second and third quarter rates.”  

“It’s clear that a lack of stability in the market coupled with the shifting winds on trade issues are dampening U.S. manufacturers’ enthusiasm for investing in new capital equipment. At the same time, we are nearly half way through the Tax Reform’s five-year window of providing lower tax rates and investment incentives.

The former creates instability, and while the latter should be creating an urgency to invest, our analysts and leading industry economists believe that the confluence of drivers will yield a positive impact on the market in late 2020 and throughout 2021.”