September 2008 Issue
September 2008
Features
Featured articles from the September 2008 issue of Modern Machine Shop
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How To Machine Composites, Part 1 -- Understanding Composites
Composites are replacing metal in certain applications. What does this mean for machining?
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Rule #2: Demand App Expertise
The support of a knowledgeable tool supplier should be part of what you purchase with the tool.
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Turning The Tough Stuff
One of this aerospace shop’s many specialties is producing ring-shaped parts that are thin-walled, complex, tightly toleranced and made of difficult-to-machine materials such as Inconel, titanium or high-temperature alloys. Turning jet engine parts doesn’t get much tougher than this.
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Rule #4: Focus on the Biggest Expense
Labor and machine time are where the real costs occur. The tool cost is tiny compared to the savings it delivers in these areas.
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Rule #5: Consider the Cutting Tool at the Start
Are you specifying the right machine? You can’t know until you know what tools you will use.
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Managing Information Maximizes Efficiency
Using an intuitive, homegrown MRP system, this shop is able to effectively manage massive amounts of information while making necessary documents accessible anywhere they’re needed on the shop floor.
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How To Machine Composites, Part 2: The Cutting Tool, Workholding and Machine Tool
In carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), the material removal mechanism is shattering instead of shearing. This makes it different from other machining applications.
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Introduction
Cutting tool technology is evolving rapidly to respond to changing demands and more challenging workpiece materials. Shops today need to look at cutting tools differently. They need to look at cutting tool suppliers differently as well.
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How To Machine Composites, Part 4 -- Drilling Composites
Achieving acceptable tool life and hole quality in a material such as CFRP demands a drill designed with composites in mind.
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Automated From The Start
Turning automation helps this shop produce parts more efficiently.
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Electrical Discharge Saw Slices Through Hard Alloys
Electrical discharge sawing uses spark-erosion technology and is said to create blanks from exotic alloys as much as 70 percent faster than wire EDM.
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How To Machine Composites, Part 5 -- Waterjet Cutting
For trimming composite parts, this shop describes where it uses machining centers and where it uses waterjet.
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Rule #3: Diamond Shouldn't Be Rare
Consider PCD or CBN wherever capacity is tight.
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How To Machine Composites, Part 3 -- Milling Composites
Diamond shines for this shop when it mills composites.
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The New Rules of Cutting Tools — Rule #1: Do More With Your Machine
The tooling has the potential to transform the process.
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Clean Fire Suppression Protects Machines, Workers
Machine tool fires can cause unscheduled downtime, or worse, damage to the machine itself and possibly a shop’s facility. In fact, Siemens Building Technologies (Buffalo Grove, Illinois) says that more than 10 percent of all machine tools using non-hydrous coolants will have a fire incident within five years after installation.
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July MBI Virtually Unchanged At 44.5
The Truth About How The Income Tax System Works
Make It Visual
Approximating Geometry Measurement
Significant Change, Same Focus
