Tooling

Workholding 27 Feb 2004

Bar Handling Made Easy

DuPage Machine Products, Inc., Bloomingdale, Illinois, puts the TV strongmen to shame every day by moving thousands of pounds of steel thousands of feet—without breaking a sweat. He has a readily accessible material storage system and a crane system that enables him to deliver bundles of barstock from storage to any production screw machine in the shop.

Workholding 15 Jul 2003

What Is The Best Bar Feed System For Production Turning?

Selecting the right bar feeder can be one of the most important decisions a shop can make. Bar feed systems help improve productivity, throughput and quality, but in order to achieve the most benefit from them it is essential that a bar feed system be matched to the particular needs of the turning operation.

Cutting Tools 15 Jul 2003

Broaching On A Lathe

Producing a keyway, spline or similar longitudinal feature on a turned part usually necessitates an additional, time-consuming, secondary operation on a broaching or slotting machine. That means moving the part to and from a secondary operation, an extra setup, additional labor and hourly machine costs and all of the other headaches that go with secondary operations.

Cutting Tools 15 Jan 2003

Choosing Advanced Tooling For Swiss Machining

The right tools for Swiss machines can boost throughput and improve the quality of finished parts. For example, switching from brazed carbide parting tools to more wear resistant coated carbide inserts with sharper edges reduced cycle time on an automotive fluid connector from 11 seconds to just 5 seconds.

Workforce Development 15 Nov 2002

Need Greater Machine Uptime? Load More Parts At A Time For Machining

In good times and bad, shops should constantly be on the lookout for ways to get more production from their existing equipment. Workholding methods frequently offer significant opportunities for improvement.

Workholding 15 Jul 2002

Why Short Magazine Bar Loaders Are Efficient

So when are long bars and hydraulic magazine barfeeders justified? Typically, the best applications for long bar magazine feeders are found when production quantities are large (where the batch size exceeds 5,000) or when the workpiece is over 8 inches long and there are relatively few changeovers (one every 2 weeks or so). In most other cases, short barfeeders usually tend to be more efficient and a better investment. But let's analyze the reasons and find out why.

Workholding 15 Jul 2002