Walter delivers thread of productivity

With the arrival of the T2710 series, Walter is extending the concept of its multiple-row thread-milling cutters for producing shorter threads. Thanks to small spaces between insert rows, the T2710 offers the highly productive processing of thread depths up to 1.5xD.

Even with short thread depths, the simultaneous machining of several thread sections by the T2710 series reduces machining time. Productivity is further amplified by the wear-resistant thread-milling inserts of the Walter WSM37S Tiger-tec Silver grade.

Suitable for universal use, the rigid tool body incorporates multiple rows of indexable inserts for thread milling. The tool body design features minimum spaces between the insert rows to increase productivity levels when creating short threads.

Walter’s new tool is suitable for threads carrying a nominal diameter that starts from 20 mm and upwards with a thread pitch range from 1.5 to 6 mm, and for imperial threads a TPI of 18 to 6. To meet the complete needs of industry, Walter has introduced several inserts for threads from M125 to UN 5-inch, inserts with a pitch range from 6 to 10 mm and 4 TPI, as well as inserts with a 55° flank angle for BSP threads.

With T2710 it is possible to direct the coolant supply both radially and axially, enabling customers to adapt the process for the machining of blind or through holes, optimally flushing the swarf from the thread. The Walter T2710 series is for universal application on steel, stainless steel, cast iron, non-ferrous metals, high-temperature alloys and even hardened steels up to 55 HRc.

The new additions add to the existing standard insert range that includes M24 to M125, UNC1 to UN5, and G1 to G3 ½-inch.

For further information
www.walter-tools.com

Quickgrind offers Amazon ordering

Cutting tools from Quickgrind are now available to purchase on Amazon, in turn making the next-day delivery of standard product lines a certainty.

By using the Amazon platform, customers can order cutting tools as late as 22:00 in most areas with guaranteed next-day UK delivery. Quickgrind says that no cutting-tool manufacturer with an established logistics platform can provide a service that offers such a responsive service. Furthermore, customers can get free one-day delivery on eligible items and take advantage of consolidated shipping and ‘Amazon Day’ events, with predictable and convenient weekly deliveries.

Although bespoke engineered solutions from Quickgrind will continue, the company will introduce a standard series of products through the Amazon logistics platform. This move not only opens Quickgrind up to the whole UK market, but further afield, such as the US, mainland Europe and Australia. Furthermore, it will give Quickgrind exposure to enthusiasts, job shops and small manufacturers.

The Amazon online store is familiar to most households and businesses, and this familiarity reduces the complexity of purchasing for work purposes and can reduce overall procurement time. In short, being able to automate approval processes (all part of Amazon Business) helps limit the administrative burden.

Additionally, customer control and consolidation of spend can be achieved through a single ‘multi-user’ account with built-in features. This capability eradicates what procurement staff call ‘long-tail’ and rogue spending. Customers can track all their orders with ease and transparency.

Leveraging the Amazon Business store produces lower costs with quantity pricing available, alongside reduced shipping costs. For example, customers can spend just £80 for unlimited deliveries per year. This provides manufacturers with the traceability and confidence that staff can order cutting tools for urgent jobs that may come in at short notice.

For further information
www.quickgrind.com

Arrowsmith takes-off with MSC

As a prominent tier-one subcontract supplier to leading aerospace OEMs, Coventry-based Arrowsmith Engineering relies upon the expertise of its supply chain, and in particular MSC Industrial Supply.

Arrowsmith, like the entire aerospace sector, has witnessed the perfect storm of reduced orders and output, COVID-compliant distancing and staff on furlough – all created by worldwide flight restrictions. However, Arrowsmith has overcome numerous industry downturns in its five decades of business, and this experience has seen the company once again adapt to market conditions. With MSC supporting the subcontractor over the past five years to deliver cost reductions and productivity savings of more than £500,000, Arrowsmith has again called upon its supply partner to support it in the machining of more than 50 aluminium engine components.

MSC reviewed the proposed strategy for five set-ups on a pair of three-axis machining centres and subsequently adapted the process to two set-ups on a single five-axis machine.

The solution included the adaptation of the existing zero-point clamping system to add a secondary clamping plate and two Lang vices for clamping the extra-long parts.

In terms of tools, MSC knew that machining aluminium aerospace components of this type is best suited to the solid-carbide milling range offered by SGS Carbide. Sharing the details of the project with SGS, MSC remotely created and optimised a selection of cutting tools that would enhance machining performance and tool life, while consolidating the number of tools required.

By adapting the machining strategy to just two set-ups, MSC has guaranteed process stability for critical aerospace components with tolerances across the part tied to less than 50 µm. MSC has also instigated a machining strategy that is yielding a cycle time of just 2 hours 20 minutes.

For further information
www.mscdirect.co.uk

All-electric aircraft deal

GKN Aerospace and Eviation have signed a collaboration agreement on wing, empennage and EWIS (electrical wiring interconnection systems) for Alice, Eviation’s ground-breaking regional electric aircraft. Alice is aiming to change the way people travel, by making journeys of distances up to 650 miles more sustainable. As part of the collaboration agreement, design and manufacturing activities are already underway at Eviation (Israel) and in several GKN Aerospace engineering centres across Europe.

For further information
www.gknaerospace.com

HPC started with one Citizen Cincom: now has 10

Back in 1997, when physics graduate Paul Cobb asked his father Reg to help him invest in a subcontract machining business specialising in CNC sliding-head turning, Mr Cobb senior groaned; he knew it would mean a sizeable investment. At the time, both father and son were partners in the family’s subcontracting firm in Stapleford, Hemlock Engineering, which specialised in producing mainly prismatic parts and continues to do so.

However, Paul was keen to embark on a project of his own. He chose not to become a computer programmer or geological analyst but instead started HPC Services. Renting a small factory unit in nearby Ilkeston, he installed a Japanese-built Citizen Cincom L25 sliding-head, bar-fed, turn-mill centre. At the time it was the first of a new, updated design to arrive in the UK.

From that moment onwards, HPC’s approach has been to acquire the latest, most productive CNC equipment available, designed to slash production times, reduce costs and improve component quality.

Over the intervening 24 years, Cobb has bought around 20 CNC sliding-head, twin-spindle lathes of nominally 12, 20 or 32 mm bar capacity, all from the same supplier. Ten Cincoms are in operation, following systematic replacement of the others with newer models. There are also seven fixed-head, twin-spindle CNC lathes on the shop floor of the current premises, which houses around 30 employees.

When Cobb launched HPC, he took with him from Hemlock one production job to get started, a shaft for a sell-by date label printing machine. The food industry still accounts for around one-third of HPC’s turnover. This job previously involved turning the component in two operations, after which it was ground and then milled on a machining centre, all in a total cycle time of seven minutes. On the Citizen L25, he completed the same job in one minute as part of a one-hit set up. Today, HPC machines the parts on a different slider at a rate of 1000 per month.

Due to complete machining in a single set up, the components produced by HPC were of better quality, reliably holding 5 µm concentricity and 10 µm dimensional tolerance. Moreover, the price charged to the customer has consistently fallen in real terms due to the progressively higher level of automation on the newer lathes, which allows longer periods of unattended running, 24/7.

“Over the years, turned-parts subcontractors from around the world have quoted for this work,” says Cobb. “However, by harnessing the efficiency and accuracy of machines like the Cincom sliders we are globally competitive on price and quality, even for large production volumes.

“In the past that was not the case, but it is possible now with modern, ultra-high speed plant,” he continues. “And of course, our delivery times are much better than competition in the Far East can offer, added to which, control over projects is easier. As a result, we’re seeing a strong trend towards reshoring.”

Today, HPC has some 5000 different part numbers on its books. Components are produced from 38 mm diameter bar or smaller on the Cincoms. Quantities range from 100 to 40,000 in a vast range of materials, from exotic alloys, through stainless steels, brass and aluminium, to plastics. The two million parts machined annually account for two-thirds of the company’s £3m annual turnover, the remainder being fixed-head turning. HPC reinvests some 10% of revenue every year in new plant and equipment, a proportion that also applies to Hemlock’s £7m turnover.

One of the latest components produced at HPC in one hit on a sliding-head lathe requires only milling. The company machines the parts on one of two recently delivered Cincom M32-VIIIs of a radically different design compared with the earlier M32s on site. The first of the new machines arrived in November 2020 and Cobb was so impressed with its performance that he bought another a month later.

The prismatic component looks as though it has been machined from flat bar, but is in fact milled from 303 stainless steel round bar, as it is difficult to source flat bar in that material in the UK. Used on a date-coding machine, the part is produced in one operation in a cycle time of 4 minutes 53 seconds on the lathe, whereas it would require four operations totalling 7 minutes on a VMC.

A year or so before the arrival of the two new M32s, which come with kits to accommodate 38 mm diameter bar, the chief designer from Citizen’s Japanese factory visited HPC to ask Cobb what he would like to see in the fifth generation of this sliding-head lathe. His response was, “more rigidity”. The Japanese manufacturer obliged, endowing the latest model with box guideways rather than linear slides, a tang instead of a worm drive on the turret and higher power motors throughout.

“The difference is amazing,” states Cobb. “It is possible to machine exotic alloys at double the speed compared with a fourth generation M32, and you get four times the tool life, especially as coolant is now delivered through the tool platen as well as the turret. It is a massive step up in performance. A 10 mm cutter purrs into the bar, even using a mill with carbide inserts rather than a solid-carbide tool, which we need to use on the earlier M32s. Any production engineer would know that the new model is a very rigid machine.”

Other aspects of the latest design that he appreciates are the increased number of driven tools and a platen tool post with a programmable B axis, which is useful for producing angled features on components and performing front working.
Cycles for many jobs are significantly quicker. For example, when producing a particular 303 stainless steel flange from 38 mm bar, it was previously necessary to wait for the turret to become available to deburr the component. At 57 seconds, the cycle time is now 25 seconds quicker, representing a saving of 30%.

Just as important for reducing production costs is the ability to swap the machine over in half an hour to guide bush-less mode, thus saving remnant wastage when producing relatively short components like the flanges. In this case, it is possible to produce 262 parts from a 3-m bar, compared with 225 if the guide bush is in place. With 5000 of the flanges produced annually, the saving is significant.

Citizen’s advanced technology also came to the rescue a few years earlier, when HPC received a contract to produce plastic internal components for a manufacturer of high-quality taps. Moulding these top-end parts is not feasible, as flash on the sealing surfaces could cause leakage and removing it would be too time-consuming. Turn-milling the components from acetyl bar was the preferred method of manufacture, but plastics are notoriously difficult to machine due to the generation of copious quantities of long, stringy swarf, especially when grooving.

Citizen had recently invented its patented, low-frequency vibration (LFV) software that breaks such swarf into short, manageable lengths. Running in the Cincom’s Mitsubishi control, the facility can switch in and out of a programmed cycle by G-code command.

“LFV on the Cincom L20 we bought in 2017 is absolutely brilliant for turning plastic,” says Cobb. “Normally, on a lathe we regularly have to remove swarf by hand that has tangled around the component and tooling, which takes ages and risks damaging the part, but that is eliminated by the software.

“It not only saves a lot of production time, but allows us to run the lathe unattended for long periods, which usually would be impossible when machining this type of material,” he concludes. “The software will also be a big advantage if we receive contracts for producing components from ductile, long-chipping metals, such as copper.”

For further information
www.citizenmachinery.co.uk