Cutting tool material consisting of polycrystalline cubic boron nitride with a metallic or ceramic binder. PCBN is available either as a tip brazed to a carbide insert carrier or as a solid insert. Primarily used for cutting hardened ferrous alloys.

Cutting tool material consisting of natural or synthetic diamond crystals bonded together under high pressure at elevated temperatures. PCD is available as a tip brazed to a carbide insert carrier. Used for machining nonferrous alloys and nonmetallic materials at high cutting speeds.

Tough, difficult-to-machine alloys; includes Hastelloy, Inconel and Monel. Many are nickel-base metals.

EXSYS Tool is introducing its latest thread whirling toolholder designed for single-spindle Swiss screw machines to machines high-precision OD threads in challenging materials.

Intermetallic compound consisting of equal parts, by atomic weight, of tungsten and carbon. Sometimes tungsten carbide is used in reference to the cemented tungsten carbide material with cobalt added and/or with titanium carbide or tantalum carbide added. Thus, the tungsten carbide may be used to refer to pure tungsten carbide as well as co-bonded tungsten carbide, which may or may not contain added titanium carbide and/or tantalum carbide.

Cutting tool materials based on aluminum oxide and silicon nitride. Ceramic tools can withstand higher cutting speeds than cemented carbide tools when machining hardened steels, cast irons and high-temperature alloys.

An inexpensive alternative to dedicated thread whirling machines, the EXSYS toolholder is ideal for processing micro-components with long, slender thread profiles such as medical bone screws, dental implants and aerospace fasteners.

Groove or other tool geometry that breaks chips into small fragments as they come off the workpiece. Designed to prevent chips from becoming so long that they are difficult to control, catch in turning parts and cause safety problems.

Available in two major types: tungsten high-speed steels (designated by letter T having tungsten as the principal alloying element) and molybdenum high-speed steels (designated by letter M having molybdenum as the principal alloying element). The type T high-speed steels containing cobalt have higher wear resistance and greater red (hot) hardness, withstanding cutting temperature up to 1,100º F (590º C). The type T steels are used to fabricate metalcutting tools (milling cutters, drills, reamers and taps), woodworking tools, various types of punches and dies, ball and roller bearings. The type M steels are used for cutting tools and various types of dies.

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.

The diamond PCBN inserts deliver high-precision performance and excellent surface finish in materials including hardened and heat-treated steels up to 72 HRC, HSS, high-alloyed steels hardened to 45 HRC and nickel-base superalloys, gray cast iron, ductile, and graphite. Available in both one and two cutting edge configurations, Carmex diamond inserts deliver both higher performance and longer tool life.

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Jim White, national sales manager for Carmex USA, comments, “The many advantages of diamond tooling have resulted in its increasing popularity throughout industry. Our PCD, CVD-T and PCBN inserts deliver high material-removal rates, superior surface finish, and longer tool life in abrasive materials.”

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.

Materials composed of different elements, with one element normally embedded in another, held together by a compatible binder.

Carmex Precision Tools Ltd. has introduced new diamond turning inserts designed to enable customers to achieve higher productivity and greater efficiency in machining hard materials faster and more effectively than grinding or ceramics. The PCD inserts excel in the machining of nonferrous materials, including high-silicon aluminum, copper and brass alloys, magnesium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics, and composites.

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Substances having metallic properties and being composed of two or more chemical elements of which at least one is a metal.

Also, because the EXSYS toolholder’s cutting action takes place near the machine’s guide bushing, users achieve maximum rigidity during the threading process, which ultimately results in accurate, quality components with high surface finish.

Substance used for grinding, honing, lapping, superfinishing and polishing. Examples include garnet, emery, corundum, silicon carbide, cubic boron nitride and diamond in various grit sizes.

The ring-shaped toolholder has an adjustable range of zero and 15 degrees to accommodate most profile shapes. It employs a maximum input and output rpm of 6,000 1/min and maximum torque output of 13 Nm to threadmill rough stock at extremely high speeds.

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CVD is designed for machining aluminum and magnesium alloys, high-silicon aluminum, precious metal alloys, plastics with abrasive fillers, tungsten carbide, and ceramic green compacts. An advanced chipbreaker reduces heat generation and energy consumption.

High-temperature (1,000° C or higher), atmosphere-controlled process in which a chemical reaction is induced for the purpose of depositing a coating 2µm to 12µm thick on a tool’s surface. See coated tools; PVD, physical vapor deposition.

The EXSYS thread whirling toolholder mounts to one of the rotary tool stations on the Swiss screw machine and offers fast cutting tool change outs.

Thread whirling with the EXSYS toolholder has several advantages over traditional, single-point threading operations. Thread whirling increases tool life by distributing the cutting load over several inserts. The process also cuts threads to their full depths, including full deburr, in one pass. Single-point threading, on the other hand, has one cutting edge, taking the entire cutting load over several passes. Furthermore, in thread whirling, users can freely select their speeds and feeds to suit ideal cutting conditions.

Because of its open interface, the EXSYS toolholder accommodates cutting tool inserts from different suppliers. The chosen inserts, however, must be identical and evenly spaced for the thread whirling process. The cutting edges of these inserts face the toolholder’s opening and rotate around the bar stock to cut an external thread. The machine’s Z-axis longitudinally feeds the toolholder at high speeds, while the bar stock rotates at slow speeds via C-axis control. Each insert then takes its cut of the material as the toolholder whirls around the bar stock.