Horn to launch new tools for reaming and thread milling, plus new geometry

There is no other lock on the market that competes with the features of the Hiplok D1000. It can resist a portable angle grinder attack, it's the same silhouette as other U-locks, and it's light enough to easily carry

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One of the people helping to move the company in this direction is Steve Heckard, Manager of US Operations. He notes that Ceratizit USA is pushing further in this direction via numerous continuous improvement initiatives. These include offline presetting of cutting tools, quick-changeover workholding like that used on the Mazak, and greater use of machine probing, all in an effort to reduce setup time wherever possible. “Despite the fact that some standard products may run in the thousands, production jobs of one to five pieces are common, with many specifying custom parts they will never see again,” said Heckard. “We very much have to operate with a job shop mentality here, and that means focusing on our changeovers.”

While the D1000 is on the smaller side it is not on the lighter side. My scale shows 1,923 grams which is a bit heavier than the Hiplok quoted weight of 1.8kg. Even at 1.8kg though, it's heavy. There is an optional carry pouch but no frame mounting provision and it's likely because of the weight. It's worth noting though that despite being bigger than the Kryptonite it is about 100 grams lighter. I always choose to carry a heavy lock when I want a lock and for me the roughly 2kg was fine in the bottom of a Chrome Industries Barrage Cargo backpack.

Cahn’s also made his fair share of KUB drills. As you’ll see, the manufacturing approach has changed a great deal recently, but it was once a "fairly lengthy process" that required multiple machining operations.

Runs endmills and arbor-mounted milling cutters. Features include a head with a spindle that drives the cutters; a column, knee and table that provide motion in the three Cartesian axes; and a base that supports the components and houses the cutting-fluid pump and reservoir. The work is mounted on the table and fed into the rotating cutter or endmill to accomplish the milling steps; vertical milling machines also feed endmills into the work by means of a spindle-mounted quill. Models range from small manual machines to big bed-type and duplex mills. All take one of three basic forms: vertical, horizontal or convertible horizontal/vertical. Vertical machines may be knee-type (the table is mounted on a knee that can be elevated) or bed-type (the table is securely supported and only moves horizontally). In general, horizontal machines are bigger and more powerful, while vertical machines are lighter but more versatile and easier to set up and operate.

Replaceable tool that clamps into a tool body, drill, mill or other cutter body designed to accommodate inserts. Most inserts are made of cemented carbide. Often they are coated with a hard material. Other insert materials are ceramic, cermet, polycrystalline cubic boron nitride and polycrystalline diamond. The insert is used until dull, then indexed, or turned, to expose a fresh cutting edge. When the entire insert is dull, it is usually discarded. Some inserts can be resharpened.

Keep moving to the shackle and this is where the magic of the D1000 resides. Initially what's noticeable is the rubberized outer. It's not a coating but instead a cover, and it's very thick. This is here to keep you from scratching your bikes finish. The hardware underneath is square. This protects against bolt cutters but it's the material design that's special.

Rick Cahn knows as much about the KUB Trigon drill as anyone. He applied for an entry-level assembly and deburring job at Ceratizit USA’s (formerly Komet of America) Schaumburg, Illinois, facility in 1994—just a few months before the product’s debut—and has been there ever since.

CNC machine tool capable of drilling, reaming, tapping, milling and boring. Normally comes with an automatic toolchanger. See automatic toolchanger.

When cool, the drill was sent back to the CNC department for finish turning, milling of the insert pockets, and then heat-treated to the desired hardness. This was followed by cylindrical grinding of the shank and some additional machining operations on the drill's front end to make the insert pockets perfectly true. As Cahn stated, it was a lengthy process, but has since been streamlined somewhat by the addition of some very advanced machining technology—an Integrex multitasking center from Mazak.

The primary defence for other U-Lock designs is thickness. A steel shackle is tough to break through and the thicker you make it the longer it takes. Hiplok still has a steel core but there's an additional coating with a material called Ferosafe. Ferosafe is a patented material designed to resist grinder cutting wheels and carbide tipped drill bits. It's both light and strong.

Right away I think it's important to note that I did not attempt to cut the Hiplok D1000. My expertise is in using a lock, not breaking one and I was happy to let the videos from Hiplok stand in that regard. What I tested was what it's like to use and on that front, it's a joy.

“With 110 tools resident in the magazine, all I have to do on most jobs is pop in the fixture, run a probing routine to pick up work offsets, and push cycle start,” he said. “Setup times have dropped to maybe half an hour, whereas they were taking hours previously. On top of that, I expect that the Integrex and some of the other equipment will be running lights-out fairly soon. Considering Industry 4.0 and all the other technology that’s available today, that's where manufacturing is headed.”

Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.

If you take a look at our article on how to lock your bike, you'll see that it's important to get the lock through the frame, the rear wheel, and whatever you are locking it to. With an internal size of 155mm x 92mm the D1000 falls into the smaller category of U-locks. Another popular high-security lock is the New York Fahgettaboudit Mini which carries an internal size of 153mm x 83mm. The D1000 is larger, but not by much. This size is popular on the most secure locks because it keeps the lock safer from prying attacks. The downside is you’ll struggle to get around the rear wheel also. If you don’t have a fender I think it could make it through the rear wheel but with a fender, it’s just a bit too tight.

Hiplok is a company of enthusiasts just like you. They know that finding the right bike is a big deal and that's especially true in this time of shortages and empty bike shops. Once it's in your hands, no one wants to experience that sinking feeling of looking at an empty spot where you know you locked your bike.

The Hiplok D1000 is peace of mind for me. I don't lock my bike overnight but I do lock it in some rough neighbourhoods. No one would bother someone cutting through a bike lock and I worry about my bike all the time. With the D1000 I was able to walk into the grocery store and feel secure that no one was going to cut through my lock before I got back. I was also able to enjoy peace of mind that I wasn't going to scratch my bike with the lock. If I somehow lost the keys there's a registration and replacement program, I could take advantage of. It's not a cheap lock but it's cheaper than my bike and I only have to buy it once.

He notes that the best way to address this is for Ceratizit and the manufacturing community overall to begin building partnerships and relationships with community colleges, vocational-technical institutes, and high schools, investing in the next generation of talent now so that shops will not be even more short-handed in the years to come. "There are some great opportunities in manufacturing, and it’s our task to educate young people on these opportunities and attract them to the rewarding, good-paying jobs that we and others are offering," said Heckard.

Grinding operation in which the workpiece is rotated around a fixed axis while the grinding wheel is fed into the outside surface in controlled relation to the axis of rotation. The workpiece is usually cylindrical, but it may be tapered or curvilinear in profile. See centerless grinding; grinding.

Fluid that reduces temperature buildup at the tool/workpiece interface during machining. Normally takes the form of a liquid such as soluble or chemical mixtures (semisynthetic, synthetic) but can be pressurized air or other gas. Because of water’s ability to absorb great quantities of heat, it is widely used as a coolant and vehicle for various cutting compounds, with the water-to-compound ratio varying with the machining task. See cutting fluid; semisynthetic cutting fluid; soluble-oil cutting fluid; synthetic cutting fluid.

What the Hiplok D1000 does is provide security against portable angle grinders. As technology progresses so does the technology used to steal bikes. A portable angle grinder doesn't cost much and you only need one. They've become a frequent option in the tool chest of those who steal bikes. Other locks on the market use thicker hardened steel shackles so that cutting them takes longer. The point of the D1000 is that the Ferosafe material will quickly dull a cutting wheel. It's not impossible to cut through but you'd need to change the cutting wheel regularly.

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Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.

Main body of a tool; the portion of a drill or similar end-held tool that fits into a collet, chuck or similar mounting device.

Microprocessor-based controller dedicated to a machine tool that permits the creation or modification of parts. Programmed numerical control activates the machine’s servos and spindle drives and controls the various machining operations. See DNC, direct numerical control; NC, numerical control.

Josh hails from the Pacific Northwest of the United States but would prefer riding through the desert than the rain. He will happily talk for hours about the minutiae of cycling tech but also has an understanding that most people just want things to work. He is a road cyclist at heart and doesn't care much if those roads are paved, dirt, or digital. Although he rarely races, if you ask him to ride from sunrise to sunset the answer will be yes. Height: 5'9" Weight: 140 lb. Rides: Salsa Warbird, Cannondale CAAD9, Enve Melee, Look 795 Blade RS, Priority Continuum Onyx

At the top of the locking section is where you'll find the keyhole. It's not immediately visible because the keyhole finds protection behind a strip of rubber. It's perhaps not completely watertight but it does provide the lock cylinder with protection from the elements. Open it, the flap is large to make it easy even with gloves, and the lock cylinder sits about a centimetre inside the housing. Keeping the cylinder less accessible makes it harder to defeat as well as helps to protect it from the weather.

"Back then, we used a pair of CNC lathes and a rotary table-equipped machining center to rough turn both ends, drill the coolant holes, and mill a pair of straight flutes, after which the partially completed drill would go into an induction heating device,” he said. “There, it was brought up to 1000 degree F or so in less than ten seconds and then twisted to generate the spiral flutes."

Increased use of automation notwithstanding, they’re also searching for solutions to another problem, one that plagues manufacturers across the United States: the shortage of skilled workers. “I think one of the biggest challenges right now—not only for us but for the industry at large—is developing a pipeline of talent to one day fill the shoes of machine shop veterans like Rick [Cahn]. These people have lots of experience that will be difficult to replace.”

Cahn now enjoys the title of lead CNC machinist for 5-axis. He said he enjoys working with the Integrex, and using it finds the manufacturing process for KUB Trigon drills is far shorter than it once was. The blanks are machined in Germany, heat-treated and ground, then delivered to the Integrex for final machining. Here, a RoboJob six-axis robot loads and unloads parts all day from a pair of pallets, freeing Cahn for more important work than machine tending.

To make sure that never happens, Hiplok is releasing the D1000. It says it's the most secure lock on the market, and we had an opportunity to spend some time with it. The Hiplok D1000 is too new to be on our list of the best bike locks available, and much too heavy for our list of best lightweight bike locks. Keep reading to see our thoughts on it and whether we think it should be on a future version of our best lists.

The form of the Hiplok D1000 is all about the function. The locking section is entirely clad in glossy black plastic. It's a clamshell design that meets in the middle. One side houses a matte panel with the name, company logo, a diamond signifying the Sold Secure Diamond rating, and a Ferosafe wordmark. On the opposite side, you'll find just the Hiplok logo.

To this end, he and his colleagues are engaging with their counterparts in Europe, where a robust operational excellence program is underway. The two teams recently met in Schaumburg for a workshop to begin baselining current production capabilities and share ideas on ways to further improve shop floor operations, among them future automation initiatives and the standardization of work documentation.

Grooves and spaces in the body of a tool that permit chip removal from, and cutting-fluid application to, the point of cut.

Enlarging a hole that already has been drilled or cored. Generally, it is an operation of truing the previously drilled hole with a single-point, lathe-type tool. Boring is essentially internal turning, in that usually a single-point cutting tool forms the internal shape. Some tools are available with two cutting edges to balance cutting forces.

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Flip the whole locking section over and you'll see where the rest of the lock fits. Lock it without the shackle and you can see one of the most important features of any quality U-lock design. On each side, a steel locking tab will protrude. The double-locking tabs mean that even if someone were to cut through the lock it requires two cuts to get it loose. There's no correct orientation either so you can lock it no matter which way you turn the two pieces.

The Hiplok D1000 has no competition. There exists only one other lock on the market that claims to resist a portable angle grinder and it's more than four times as heavy. Outside of the headline feature, it's also a generally well thought out lock. The size is a little tight to get through a frame and a rear wheel, there's no frame mounting provision, and the bag is an optional extra on an already expensive lock. Despite that, the most important thing a lock can do is keep your bike safe and there isn't another lock that does that better. As long as you can afford it this is the best even if it's not perfect.

Hardness is a measure of the resistance of a material to surface indentation or abrasion. There is no absolute scale for hardness. In order to express hardness quantitatively, each type of test has its own scale, which defines hardness. Indentation hardness obtained through static methods is measured by Brinell, Rockwell, Vickers and Knoop tests. Hardness without indentation is measured by a dynamic method, known as the Scleroscope test.

Veteran machinists might remember their first use of an indexable insert drill. Suddenly, the taper shank and Silver and Deming drills they’d been struggling with for years were obsolete, replaced by cutting tools able to drill holes at least four times faster than their high-speed steel, non-coolant fed counterparts. No more pecking, no more spotting drills or pilot holes, no more drill wander or stopping production to sharpen a worn drill bit—simply load up a fresh set of inserts and get drilling.

Machining operation in which material is removed from the workpiece by a powered abrasive wheel, stone, belt, paste, sheet, compound, slurry, etc. Takes various forms: surface grinding (creates flat and/or squared surfaces); cylindrical grinding (for external cylindrical and tapered shapes, fillets, undercuts, etc.); centerless grinding; chamfering; thread and form grinding; tool and cutter grinding; offhand grinding; lapping and polishing (grinding with extremely fine grits to create ultrasmooth surfaces); honing; and disc grinding.

The chances are good that the logo inscribed on that revolutionary cutting tool spelled KUB. First introduced in 1977, Ceratizit’s Komet KUB product category of insert drills paved the way to easier, more productive and accurate holemaking. The century-old German cutting tool manufacturer—now part of the Ceratizit Group—took holemaking even further with the KUB Trigon in 1995, a design that continues to set today's indexable drilling standard.

“When Ceratizit USA invested in its first mill-turn machines around seven years ago, I volunteered to move over to that department, because up until that time I'd spent my entire career almost entirely in the milling area," he said. "It turns out that was a very good decision that they purchased the Integrex and offered me that position due to my experience with live-tool lathes. That's what I've been doing for the past three years.”

"After my first year, they let me apply for the apprenticeship program, and four years after that, I graduated to the CNC machining department,” says Cahn. “Since then, I’ve worked on everything from our standard product lines like drills and cartridges to all manner of special tooling—chamfer tools, boring bars, form cutters ... you name it.”

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