Dietz’s initiative paid off.  MRG got the repeat order, completing the three races in less than two hours.  Inserts lasted through several pieces, wearing gradually, with no incidence of rupture.

Modified standard Chipsurfers have been proven in hundreds of applications, especially in keyslots and small-arms manufacturing, Forman added.  Unlike tubesheet grooving, most of these applications require the less-expensive alloy steel shank.

Hansen runs the cutters at full speed during the day when the place is manned, and backs off the feed about 10% during the unmanned shifts as a precaution.  In all cases the inserts last long enough for absolute process security for 12-15 hours at full speed; some last 45 hours in the cut per edge.

Ingersoll got its start in special milling tools, and has implemented fast-track processes to accelerate product development, like an engineering team dedicated to serving that niche more effectively.  Even today, about half of Ingersoll’s milling business involves modified standards. Delivery is a matter of manufacturing queues only; no delays for design or testing.

Machining grooves and shallow channels. Example: grooving ball-bearing raceways. Typically performed by tools that are capable of light cuts at high feed rates. Imparts high-quality finish.

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“Cycle time savings are really secondary to repeatable accuracy in an unattended environment,” said Canyon Hydro manufacturing engineer Mike Hansen.

“The extra-thick shaft added much-needed rigidity to a long-reach form milling operation, which generates very large lateral cutting forces,” Lubinski explained.

What makes the job so difficult is the requirement to mill three 1-inch diameter ball bearing raceways into the ID, one of them seven inches deep inside the tube.  “Long reach, ID milling, form milling: any single element by itself would be a challenge,” said Dietz.  “Here we’ve got all three.  It’s a machining ‘perfect storm’.”

Hansen specified standard tools in his RFPs, but most vendors proposed a palette of specials anyway, and asked for up-front development money.  The only exception was Ingersoll, which proposed a 2-inch ball mill for 90% or the milling, and a modified standard Form Master button cutter for the undercuts.  The only modification is to add inserts on the backside of the cutter body to handle those undercuts.  The cutter works like a standard button cutter most of the time, and then like a T-slotter when it reaches the undercut portion along the outer edge of each bucket.

Ingersoll solved the problem by grinding the double-groove form into a standard four-flute, Chipsurfer replaceable-tip milling tool.  Both shank and replaceable tip are carbide.  The result is a three-to-one cycle time reuction, 25% plant capacity increase, 30% tool-life extension, and burrs and deburring completely eliminated.  Moreover, the tool is much less expensive than the previous solid-carbide tool because the replaceable part represents less than 10% of all the carbide in the tool.

The global cutting tool inserts market highlights some of the key market participants operating in the global cutting tool inserts market, such as Kennametal Inc., Sumitomo Electric Carbide Inc., Sandvik AB, Knight Carbide Inc., Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Total Carbide Ltd., Asahi Diamond Industrial Co. Ltd., Tomei Diamond Co. Ltd., Kyocera Corp., Mitsubishi Materials Corp., Showa Denko K.K., YG-1 Co. Ltd., Element Six, Iscar Ltd. and NGK Spark Plugs Co. Ltd. (NTK Cutting Tools).

1,000 three-quarter-inch holes, each one requiring two grooves to facilitate a subsequent swaging operation.  It has been estimated that a two-thirds cycle time saving for this single operation might increase the effective capacity of a heat exchanger shop by 25%.

Geographically, APAC and European markets are picking up pace in the global cutting tool inserts market, owing to expansion of industrial infrastructure and an upsurge in the automotive and oil and gas industry over the years. Europe being an automotive hub has a lot of scope for transportation industry including railways. Most of the metal used in this industry is machined with cutting tool inserts, thus accounting for better sales of the same. The transportation segment is anticipated to soar the cutting tool inserts market in Europe. The demand for cutting tool inserts is majorly driven by its applications in various sectors such as aerospace, automotive, marine, medical, woodworking, die and mold, driven by growth in global GDP. Moreover, stable economic growth in developing countries such as India, Brazil, China and ASEAN countries, and rising urbanization and expenditure in these regions, acts as the major growth factors that are propelling the growth of the cutting tool inserts market.

As a result, the Canyon Hydro saves about $80,000 annually without upping the material removal rate.  The savings stem completely from reduced tooling inventory, recapturing dead machine time and lowering tool servicing costs because the inserts last 10 times longer than before.

In a small Faribault, Minn., job shop, where lot sizes average less than 100, a beefed-up Ingersoll indexable mill enabled MRG Tool and Die, to cut cycle time by 5 to 1 on a difficult, long-reach ID form milling job.  Betting on repeat orders, MRG foreman Al Dietz invested in the modified standard tool to optimize the low lot-size operation from the outset.

“Normally, we’d prefer standard tooling to maintain multi-source flexibility,” said the lead manufacturing engineer, “but here the benefits far outweighed the risks.  After all, the tools are 90% standard, then tweaked for our specific need, and come from a mainline supplier that maintains large stocks.  The tools work like a standard all the way through the supply chain — even in our vending machines – so I’m not really worried about surety of supply.”

“I couldn’t justify a custom cutter for a single 100-piece order, but in this case I wanted to score points with a new customer that would diversify our market base,” Dietz explained.

Machining the throats in 4140 steel universal-joint yokes presents a lot of challenges.  It requires close tolerances plus a fine finish with special corner radii to minimize stress-raisers — in an alloy that has a bad habit of work hardening.

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.

“Sometimes it involves a special-size cutter or relocation of standard seat pockets to create the needed toolpath,” he continued. “They are 90% standard, so they’re 90% designed – and proven – from the get-go.”

The standard practice is based on a single-groove slotter made of solid carbide, which typically takes about 18 seconds to complete a pair of grooves.  As it wears, it starts to throw burrs that must be removed by hand.

“Because the replaceable tip is so easy to modify, uses so little carbide, and comes in such a variety of standard styles, the Chipsurfer has proven to be a great place to start when a modified standard milling tool is needed,” said Forman.  “And repeatability is so good — 0.0005 inches radially — that tips can be changed right in the spindle, and the operation restarted immediately.”

That may have been true once — before the dominance of CAD/CAM, that is — but not anymore.  Let's look at some recent cases.

The global cutting tool inserts market is likely to account for ~US$ 18.1 Bn by the end of the assessment year 2019, and is estimated to expand at a CAGR of ~7.0% during the forecast period of 2019-2029. Among the type of material, the carbides segment is anticipated to grow at a noteworthy rate, owing to their cost effectiveness and durability, thereby contributing to the relatively high growth rate of the carbides segment over the forecast period.

For instance, wood working industry in Latin America is at a boom and this has facilitated the increase in the number of sales of cutting tool inserts. Cutting tool inserts are used to draw grooves in wooden furniture and artifacts. The most common type of cutting tool insert used to machine wood is carbide. In addition, with rising competition in the field of aerospace and marine, the requirement of jet engines, turbines, transmission parts and other vital components of aircraft or submarine has significantly increased the need for machining these components thereby increasing the scope of cutting tool inserts market.

Canyon Hydro’s key machining challenge is to contour mill the buckets on ten-ton hydropower turbine rotors, called “runners.”  Completing a runner typically takes months of continuous five-axis, long-reach milling, much of it undercuts, leaving behind a ton and a half of chips.  Virtually all the milling is done on 19-inch shank extensions.  Nevertheless final surfaces must be smoother than 32µ and dimensionally correct within 0.010 inch.

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.

Forman added that for modified standard inserts, the price is based solely on batch quantity.  “There is no added design charge. ‘Design’ is a matter of drop-downs in our standard CAD/CAM process.  Today, 10 modified standard inserts will literally cost no more than ten standards.”  The cost differential for modified special cutter bodies is higher because they typically are more like “one-off” purchases, he said.

Once upon a time in milling, manufacturing engineers and MRI managers regarded special tools as a last resort, limited mainly to dedicated high-volume applications.  Conventional wisdom was that ‘specials’ cost too much, took too long to get, and raised too many risks, both technical and logistic.

In a virtually unmanned, five-axis CNC operation in Sumas, Wash., Canyon Hydro contour mills the buckets in 10-ton hydropower turbine rotors in half the time as before, using a modified Ingersoll button cutter that cuts as it retracts as well as when it advances.  Previously, the undercutting required a separate operation on a separate spindle.  The inserts are standard, only the cutter body was modified to accommodate additional inserts for the undercut.

Furthermore, the APAC region is also expected to remain the most attractive region in terms of market attractiveness by market share index, on account of the largest volumes of cutting tool inserts consumptions expected by the region, over the forecast period, mainly driven by China. A high growth rate due to considerable industrial activity in the region is expected to contribute to the rising demand. Europe is expected to hold a significant market share in terms of both value and volume after APAC region, owing to growing automotive and other end use industries and infrastructural developments in the region.

In each case the “specials” cost a little more than standard tools and pose no higher risk of failure.  “We prefer to call them ‘modified standards’,” said Ingersoll Cutting Tools North American milling product manager Konrad Forman. “The tools are modifications to standard inserts or cutter bodies, not designed from scratch.  In most cases it’s nothing more than a special grind on an off-the-shelf insert to create a special form.

Even though the MRG application also involved internal grooving, foreman Al Dietz faced a completely different problem than the shops producing heat exchangers.  For one thing, the tube diameter is 19 inches, not 0.75.  For another, the initial lot size was only 100 pc, and from a new customer.  The workpiece becomes part of the kingpost assembly in a mining machine.

European investments in Asia are motivated by the need to reduce costs, to exploit benefits of the local supply chains and to be close to an untapped customer base, which enables them to better understand user needs and better serve their customers. European machine tool builders’ investment strategies abroad vary from strategic alliances to joint ventures, from the acquisition of foreign companies to opening production facilities in third countries. Increasing investments of global car manufacturers in emerging countries, for instance, India, China and Brazil, along with large publicly funded energy and infrastructure projects in these countries, make them attractive enough for European investments from machine tool builders.

Dietz ran the first lot with conventional HSS tools because it was a rush job and the tools were readily available.  They burned up, they chattered, they ruptured, they took 12 hours to complete one set of three raceways, but MRG delivered the first order on time anyway.

When used in lathe or screw-machine operations, this process separates a completed part from chuck-held or collet-fed stock by means of a very narrow, flat-end cutting, or parting, tool.

In a more conventional, high-volume operation, a Midwest manufacturer of drivetrain components reduced tooling and labor costs by a total of $80,000 annually with a modified, standard Ingersoll tangential mill that finishes the throats in universal joint yokes, with a single pass.  A special grind on standard inserts generates a curve on the bottom and special radii in the corners.  The only change to the cutter is that it is size-matched to the width of the throat.

“Back in the day, there were really only two choices in tooling: standard or special,” said Ingersoll’s Konrad Forman, “and now there’s a solid third: the modified standard.  A slight modification to an otherwise standard tool can trigger a huge productivity gain with none of the baggage of traditional specials.”

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One manufacturer broke the mold, opting for a modified standard facemill that does the entire job in a single pass: a size-matched Ingersoll tangential facemill.  One pass completes the throat to exact width and depth.  Custom curves ground into standard inserts generate the required corner radii.

Key applications of cutting tool inserts, such as threading, milling and shearing, parting and grooving, and drilling and boring, are expected to drive the cutting tool inserts market growth at a significant rate. The stainless steel segment is estimated to retain its market share over the forecast period. According to the report, the demand for cutting tool inserts is expected to be driven primarily by the rise of automotive industry, oil and gas sector, construction industry, urbanization, and the increasing demand from other end use industries. Furthermore, massive demand from automotive OEMs, automotive refinishing service companies, construction companies, general industrial manufacturers and maintenance service providers, marine service companies, manufacturers of cans, coils, and wood and transport industries will contribute to the demand for cutting tool equipment, which, in turn, will augment the demand for cutting tool inserts.

Customarily the throats are milled out in a two-step rough-finish process, involving two different facemills making multiple overlapping passes.  Most high-volume manufacturers strongly prefer standard tools to maintain supply-chain flexibility.

“Because both the shank and insert pocket sizes were custom, lead time for the cutter was necessarily longer,” said Lubinski.  “Nevertheless, the cutter will pay for itself out of savings with the next re-order.”

Process of both external (e.g., thread milling) and internal (e.g., tapping, thread milling) cutting, turning and rolling of threads into particular material. Standardized specifications are available to determine the desired results of the threading process. Numerous thread-series designations are written for specific applications. Threading often is performed on a lathe. Specifications such as thread height are critical in determining the strength of the threads. The material used is taken into consideration in determining the expected results of any particular application for that threaded piece. In external threading, a calculated depth is required as well as a particular angle to the cut. To perform internal threading, the exact diameter to bore the hole is critical before threading. The threads are distinguished from one another by the amount of tolerance and/or allowance that is specified. See turning.

Key strategies are the expansion of production capacities and focus on mergers and acquisitions to increase their global and regional footprint in the cutting tool inserts market. For instance, in July 2017, Sumitomo Electric Carbide Inc., started operations at the Dayton Plant, which is operated by one of its subsidiaries named Sumiden Wire Products Corp. (SWPC) in the U.S. The plant is dedicated to the manufacturing of wires for automobile springs. In April 2017, Kyocera Corp. expanded its industrial ceramic manufacturing business in Washington, U.S. ILJIN Diamond Co. Ltd. is focused on developing human friendly technologies that can impart to better customer relations and long-term deeds.

The tubesheet slotting applications illustrate the strategic impact that a modified standard tool can make: it clears a real “bottleneck” operation in an industry that’s struggling to keep up with the fast-growing alternate energy market.  Without heat exchangers, all process and thermal power-gen plants would grind to a standstill.

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Actually, Dietz was surprised by the low cost and quick delivery of such a non-standard tool.  “There’s a lot more metal in it for rigidity, but it cost us only 25% more than a standard grooving cutter and arrived just three weeks after we signed off on the design.”

Alert heat-exchanger builders are debottlenecking a tedious, but unavoidable tubesheet grooving operation with a modified standard Ingersoll double-grooving tool that does the job three times faster. Effectively, the tool increases plant capacity by 25%.  Tooling costs dropped dramatically as well, since replacement involves only the carbide tip, not the entire tool.

While that was running, Dietz asked Ingersoll’s Ondrej Lubinski for an indexable carbide solution. The answer was an indexable button mill with an extra thick shank and extra large inserts, size matched to the raceway.  Essentially, it was a very robust form tool.  Dietz told the customer what he was doing so things would go better next time.