Targeted Five-Axis Machining
Focusing on a particular part size range allows this shop to use a versatile type of five-axis machine tool. Five-axis machining now makes up 40 percent of the shop’s business.

Pallet Changer Keeps Machine and Operator Busy
A new VMC with an automated pallet changer helped this shop meet customer requirements for lower prices and faster deliveries.

Rotary Table Compliments High-Speed Machines
The HRT160SS “super-speed” rotary table from Haas Automation provides indexing speeds as fast as 570 degrees per second to take advantage of the increased speeds and feeds of high-speed machining centers.

Haas HFOs To Host Multitasking Events
On September 14, machine tool builder Haas Automation (Oxnard, California) will host a “Multi-Tasking Turning Center” Demo Day at more than 40 Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs) throughout the United States and Canada.

Dual-Spindle Centers Turn Both Part Ends in One Setup
Haas’ DS-30 dual-spindle turning centers are designed to turn both ends of a part in a single setup to minimize part handling, increase throughput and reduce work-in-process.

The In-House Advantage
A shop that introduced its own product realizes the advantages of designing and machining a part under the same roof.

Small-Footprint Y-Axis Turning Center
The ST-10Y from Haas is a small-footprint, Y-axis turning center that provides 4" of Y-axis travel (±2" from the centerline) for off-center milling, drilling and tapping, and it is equipped with high-torque live tooling and a servo-driven C axis for versatile four-axis capability.

From Automotive to Archery
Read how one job shop moved away from automotive and contract machining to making its own product—a line of bows.

HaasTec Open House Billed as Success
More than 2,100 attendees flocked to Haas Automation’s Oxnard, California headquarters and manufacturing facility for the machine tool builder’s HaasTec open house.

Machine Tool Disneyland
No rides, no Mickey, but a lot of neat things to see at HaasTec 2011.

How Do You Equip a Startup Micromachining Shop?
A response to a reader’s question includes a checklist for launching a small shop focused on micromachining.

Vise Rigidity Boosts Robot Cell Output
To automate the fixturing of round machining center components, Haas uses a custom, robot-tended setup incorporating MoveLock vises from Kurt manufacturing. Thanks to these vises’ rigidity, the machine tool builder has doubled the output of its robot cells compared to previous setups.

Haas to Host Open House
Machine tool builder Haas Automation will host an open house at its Oxnard, California headquarters and manufacturing facility for the first time in more than seven years.

Haas Automation Goes Mobile
Haas Automation’s mobile website is optimized for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices.

Dual-Spindle Turning Center Minimizes Part Handling
The Haas DS-30 series dual-spindle turning center can turn both ends of a part in a single setup to minimize part handling, increase throughput and reduce work in process.

Last Glance at IMTS 2010
It would be impossible to cover all of the key exhibitors at IMTS 2010—even if every booth got merely a quick glance. However, the editors of MMS did get glimpses of some interesting technologies exhibited at the show...

Vise Automates Milling, Eliminates Fixture Setup
A machine tool builder phased in a three-machine robotic cell to improve productivity and automate machining of spindle shafts. A new vise model that provided repeatable clamping and eliminated fixture setups was key to the success of the new project.

Y-Axis Turning Center
The ST-20SSY high speed turning center features a Y axis, C axis and live tooling to provide a four-axis solution for “done in one” machining of turned parts.  

Milling with Air
... not to mention grinding with air. Thanks to high speed spindles powered by shop air, this job shop expands the work its VMCs can do.

New Generation of VMCs
Haas’ redesigned VF product line incorporates enhancements to motion control, coolant containment, chip evacuation, ergonomics and serviceability.

Demo Events Showcase “Fast and Furious” New Machine
On June 9, machine tool manufacturer Haas Automation (Oxnard, California) will host “Fast & Furious DT-1” Demo Day 17 events at 43 Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs) throughout the United States and Canada.

Retooling Unlocks New Equipment Capabilities
To meet demand for more complex work, this Chicago-area manufacturer recently invested in its first high speed and five-axis machine tools. Replacing its previous cutting tools with aluminum end mills and drills from SGS Tool Company enabled the shop to take full advantage of these machines' advanced capabilities.

Drill and Tap Machine Features Milling Capability
Haas Automation’s DT-1 is a high speed drill and tap machine is also capable of milling operations.

Demo Events Showcase “Fast and Furious” New Machine
On June 9, machine tool manufacturer Haas Automation (Oxnard, California) will host “Fast & Furious DT-1” Demo Day 17 events at 43 Has Factory Outlets (HFOs) throughout the United States and Canada.

The Promise of "High Cube" Machining
Tool paths and a new tool design provide an alternative to high speed machining for achieving high metal removal rates in hard metals on lighter-duty machines.

It Takes Firm Resolution To Master The Micro
This shop’s experience of successfully machining a micro aneurysm clip in silicon nitride ceramic points out the need to have CAD, CAM and CNC capability at high resolution—plus the commitment to pull it all together.

Turning Center Designed For Rigidity
The Haas ST-30 turning center is designed for rigidity, accuracy and thermal stability. All castings are optimized using finite element analysis (FEA) to produce rigid designs, improve chip and coolant flow and simplify maintenance and service, the company says.

Compact Trunnion Rotary Table
The compact TR160Y dual-axis, trunnion rotary table from Haas Automation is designed to mount in the Y direction (front to back on the table) of a mid-sized VMC. At less than 25" wide and 19" deep, the trunnion is said to fit easily on one end of the machine’s table, freeing the remainder for additional fixtures or vises.

Haas Trains Student Competition Winners
In June, more than 5,000 students from around the country competed in the 2009 SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City, Missouri. For the fourth year, machine tool builder Haas Automation sponsored the Precision Machining Technology (PMT) competition at the event.

If You Want to Improve Something, Measure It
This shop involves all of its employees in the daily exercise of analyzing just where time is being spent.

Haas To Offer NASCAR-Inspired VMC
To commemorate the partnership between NASCAR driver Tony Stewart and Haas Automation founder Gene Haas—co-owners of Stewart-Haas racing—Haas is building a limited-edition Tony Stewart VF-2SS VMC. The first special-edition machine tool the company has ever designed and built features a special racing paint scheme as well as sports decals of Mr.

Five-Axis VMC Features Rotary Table
The Haas Tri60Y dual-axis trunnion rotary table is a five-axis machine with a compact footprint. The machine is designed to mount in the Y direction (front to back on the table) of a mid-sized VMC.

Haas Funds Machining Technology Scholarships
To fund its machining technology scholarship program, the Gene Haas Foundation has provided a $200,000 grant to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Education Foundation. Ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 each, the one-year scholarships are awarded through the latter foundation to qualified high school seniors, graduates and GED recipients interested in machine operation and maintenance coursework. The scholarships complement work performed at the Haas Technical Education Center (HTEC).

How To Machine Composites, Part 5 -- Waterjet Cutting Of Composites
For trimming composite parts, this shop describes where it uses machining centers and where it uses waterjet.

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.

Compact HMC With VMC-Style Enclosure For Visibility And Access
Horizontal machining centers provide distinct advantages with regard to chip flow, allowing chips to fall away from the machining area for clean cutting conditions and long tool life. Not all shops, however, want or need the pallet-changing capabilities of a production-oriented HMC. For these users, the company has

Compact HMC Features VMC-Style Enclosure

Turning Center Offers Rigidity, Thermal Stability

High-Power, Dual-Pallet HMC

3-Axis CNC Router For Large Sheet Work

Get Better Before You Get Bigger
Rather than making a major new machine tool purchase just yet, this shop is finding additional capacity on the equipment it already has. What once was a vertical machining center will become a flexible automated production center for unattended machining.

HMC Equipped With Pallet Pool For Unattended Operation

Start-Up Shop Makes Splash Machining Aluminum Guitars
This shop needed a CNC machine to produce aluminum guitars. Equipped with probing capability and the visual quick code (VQC) programming system, the Hass VF-3 VMC has the flexibility to product not only guitars, but also a range of other components, including aerospace tooling, nautical components and automotive parts.

50-Taper VMC Cuts Large Parts

Three-Axis CNC Router For Sheet Work

Indexing Table For Heavy Milling

HMC Useful For Cylinder-Head Machining

Rotary Table Useful For Complex Machining

Milling Machine Useful For Production Environments

Versatile Lathe For Secondary Operations

Always In The Learning Mode
Finding what works is both a guiding principle and a driving force for this machine tool builder.

A Fresh Face In Machining
It's late Friday night. While other 19-year-olds may be enjoying a movie or perhaps just hanging out with friends, Michael Goetz is programming a job on a mill-turn. The owner of Lombard, Illinois-based Goetz Industries is no stranger to hard work. In fact, in addition to completing coursework, he worked at least 50 hours per week while enrolled in high school.

Cycle Shop Streamlines Startup With CAD-CAM
This start-up motorcycle manufacturer is an offshoot of Lucas Oil, a private oil marketer that supplies truckers, auto-racers and bike racers with oil formulations that are designed to offer protection while enhancing engine performance. Having already attended bike shows and racing events with its own promotional motorcycle, the company says it felt that introducing its own line of bikes and apparel seemed like a logical brand extension.

Under One Roof
In bringing multiple manufacturing processes in-house, this medical shop parallels its customers' efforts to be one-stop sources for hospital equipment.

Simplifying Thread Repair
This system allows machine operators to run jobs without using G-code programming and helps manual machinists make the transition to full CNC.

CNC Machining Fuels Guitar Innovations
Could Ron Thorn produce a gorgeous electric guitar completely by hand? Sure. Would he now that he has a “metalworking” CNC machine tool? Probably not.

Simplfying Thread Repair
Repairing damaged or worn threads on a workpiece is a common chore for toolroom lathes, especially in the oilfield industry. Haas Automation has a new feature for its conversational control units that simplifies and automates this process.

Vertical Machining Center For Mold Makers

High Speed Indexing Without A Servo Control

Compact, Lightweight VMCs

Affordable Technologies For Aerostructure Machining
A research project tests the extent to which non-traditional choices related to tooling and technique can make a machining center more capable for milling complex parts.

VMCs Built For Speed

A Startup Shop In The Digital Age
This shop is building a future based on the creative and productive potential of machining.

Machining Outside The Shop
The Future of Machining - 2005 The number of machine tools operated by non-machinists outside the machine shop will increase.

Lathe Includes A Conversational Operating System

High Speed VMCs For Mold Makers

The Off-The-Shelf Alternative
This job shop sees standard products, developed internally, accounting for a growing share of the shop’s business. The latest standard product may be the “big gun” in more ways than one.

Rotary Table Offers Accuracy And Rigidity

Re-Inventing The Wheel
For a small machine shop in California, the night sky looks especially bright these days.  The launch of Spirit and Opportunity, two identical Mars exploration rovers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, represents not only a scientific breakthrough, but also a source of pride for the employees of Next Intent and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

A Lean Enterprise Work In Process
This camshaft manufacturer is 7 years into its lean transformation. The journey has yielded successes, focused its view on future changes and corroborated a number of lean maxims.

Using Hard Turning To Reduce Grinding Time
A machine tool builder found that by hard turning its lathe spindle shafts extremely close to net shape, it could cut grinding time in half.

Five-Axis Machining When You Want It
This California job shop has managed to demystify the application of five-axis machining. Using a portable trunion attachment on a vertical machining center, five-axis capability can be on the machine or off the machine as the production mix dictates.

Like Ethernet For Sneakernet
Machine tool suppliers are starting to offer controls with USB ports. The significance of the USB port is that it allows the CNC to use the various USB memory devices that have appeared in recent years

The Toolroom Lathe As An Alternative To CAM
The basic CNC lathe is not just for those who are new to NC.  The ability to quickly program a job at the control can provide a quick alternative to programming off line.

Super Fast, Super Accurate, Super VF-2SS

Plugging Into Tombstone Productivity
Customized software helps this machine tool builder maximize the output of its horizontal machining centers.

T-Base Horizontal Machining Center

Trunnion Machining Center

Toolroom Lathe

Dual-Axis Trunnion Rotary Tables

System Simplifies Probing Operations On VMCs
Few machinists will dispute the merits of probing for speeding part setup, setting tool offsets and performing in-process inspection . . . at least in theory. In practice, however, probe systems often have been viewed as difficult to use and expensive to buy.

High Speed Spindle Helps Mold Maker Stay Ahead
In the competitive arena of moldmaking, shops must produce molds quickly and within tolerance to remain profitable and attract new business. Technological advances in high speed spindles, sophisticated programming methods and high-performance cutting tools allow shops to save time and improve accuracy.

Start With Waterjet For More Effective Milling
For aircraft components machined out of plate stock, this shop roughs with abrasive waterjet before finishing with conventional milling. Removing roughing from the machining center cuts cost and lead time.

Strong Medicine For Growth
A New Jersey shop that specializes in medical work combines the latest hardware with innovative software to gain a competitive edge.

Is It Time For Bar Fed Machining Centers?
When we think of bar feeders, usually they are associated with turning operations. Recently though, some builders have developed machining centers that incorporate bar fed raw stock. It’s an interesting idea for the right applications and one that can economically reduce material handling and fixturing requirements on machining centers. Here’s a look at how they work.

Machining The Majority Of Job Shop Parts
This builder has introduced a compact vertical machining center and a compact lathe, both with the same full CNC functionality as larger machines.

What's Possible At 10,000 RPM
High-value work doesn’t have to demand a high-cost machine tool.

The Other Angle On Five-Axis Machining
Machine complex prismatic parts efficiently on low-cost machining centers. This shop embraces five-axis machining—the kind that features a five-figure price tag.

Wye/Delta In Perspective
Two configurations of windings on a spindle motor can provide consistent torque and higher horsepower across a machine tool's speed range, but other features for improved performance are also important.

CNC Helps Shop Make Machining Headway
This watercraft/motorcycle manufacturer found a machining center to help boost production because of longer travels, speed and the ability to set up multiple fixtures quickly and easily.

Low-Cost Machines Meet High-End Controls
Mold and die makers have been less than enthusiastic about low-cost VMCs in a large part because their controls typically aren't designed to deliver the high performance 3D contouring capabilities so necessary to cutting cores and cavities. But two companies are out to change all that by bringing together low-cost machining capabilities and high-end contouring control on a single platform.

Let There Be Lights
Often, these unwelcome situations mean an expensive workpiece must be scrapped or remade, usually resulting in production delays, added costs, or missed deliveries.

California Shop Reduces Cycle Times, Increases Productivity
In order to survive in today's competitive marketplace, small job shops must find ways to cut costs and increase productivity--all without sacrificing quality.

Haas Has New Plant, New Machines, New Uptime Guarantee
Haas Has New Plant, New Machines, New Uptime Guarantee

Vertical Machining Center Reduces Cycle Time By 84 Percent
A certified subcontractor to Xerox, Space Labs, Barry Controls, ITT, Pacific Scientific, and Air Bus Industries, this shop's parts aren't required to be inspected. Parts are shipped directly from the job shop to the customer's production line.

Low Cost Machine - High Efficiency Machining
This captive machine shop gets extremely high utilization of their vertical machining centers through clever workholding and handling procedures.

Aerospace Lathe Shop Finds VMCs Enhance Commercial Work
There's no trick to reducing cycle time. It's simply a matter of knowing what tools to use for which parts.

• Video: Five-Axis Machining at Padgett Machine

  A job shop owner talks about five-axis machining and feature-based programming.

• Video: Milling Inconel 718 Efficiently Without a Heavy Machine

  This video of machining Inconel at a fast metal removal rate shows the effect of constant-engagement-angle milling.

• Video: Milling Titanium 6-4 Efficiently Without a Heavy Machine

  This video of machining titanium at a fast metal removal rate shows the effect of constant-engagement-angle milling.

• Five-Axis Trimming Of Composites

  Here is video of the five-axis motion required to trim a relatively simple composite component.