Emuge is a leading manufacturer of high-performance taps, thread mills, drills, end mills and other rotary tools. The Emuge West Boylston, Mass. facility has the capability to manufacture standard and custom end mills, as well as recondition carbide drills and end mills, reamers, and Emuge HSS-E taps. More than 10,000 types of Emuge cutting tools and accessories are stocked in West Boylston.

Metal-removing edge on the face of a cutter that travels in a plane perpendicular to the axis. It is the edge that sweeps the machined surface. The flat should be as wide as the feed per revolution of the cutter. This allows any given insert to wipe the entire workpiece surface and impart a fine surface finish at a high feed rate.

An important part of the manufacturing process is machining holes with strong threads, which Harris has been producing on horizontal and vertical CNC milling machines. Wanting taps that are long lasting and that could produce consistent results, Harris approached Emuge Corp. to see what improvements could be made in the thread making process.

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For information on Harris Equipment Co., please visit harrisequip.com or call 229-273-2500. For information on Emuge Corp., visit www.emuge.com or call 508-595-3600.

Due to popular demand, the new standard radii sizes include 0.4 mm, 1.0 mm, 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm, 4.0 mm and 5.0 mm.

Tungaloy is adding new insert radius sizes to its TungUniversalSlot and TecTangentialSlot slot milling cutter series.

The Emuge C-Ti HSSE (high-speed steel) tap has 15° left-hand spiral flutes designed for tapping through holes in high tensile strength materials, including titanium alloys. TICN coating is applied to the tap for additional wear resistance. The taps produce a 3B tolerance thread form and have a form D chamfer length of 4-5P.

The CNC vertical machining center (VMC) parameters reveal just how challenging the test of the 45-HRC HARDOX 450 material would be. The feed rate was 6.6 ipm (0.16 m/min) and feed was 0.1000 ipr (2.54 mm/rev) with a 1.5" (38.1 mm) depth of cut, a drill diameter of 0.656" (16.7 mm) and a nominal diameter of 0.7500" (19.0 mm). The cutting speed was 13 sfm (3.9 m/min) and the spindle speed was 66 rpm. In the test, tool change time was five minutes and the cycle time per hole was 27.2 seconds.

Both TungUniversalSlot and TecTangentialSlot are indexable slot milling cutters with unique insert features. Traditional slot milling cutters require two different shapes of inserts in pairs, using one shape for the right corner and the other for the left, in order to complete the slot profile. Both TungUniversalSlot and TecTangentialSlot incorporate a double-sided insert, allowing one side to be used for the right hand and the other for the left hand. TungUniversalSlot has six cutting edges per insert and TecTangentialSlot 4 cutting edges per insert. These insert features contribute to significant improvement of cost-effectiveness with less tool investment and inventory management.

Loosely, any milling tool. Horizontal cutters take the form of plain milling cutters, plain spiral-tooth cutters, helical cutters, side-milling cutters, staggered-tooth side-milling cutters, facemilling cutters, angular cutters, double-angle cutters, convex and concave form-milling cutters, straddle-sprocket cutters, spur-gear cutters, corner-rounding cutters and slitting saws. Vertical cutters use shank-mounted cutting tools, including endmills, T-slot cutters, Woodruff keyseat cutters and dovetail cutters; these may also be used on horizontal mills. See milling.

Recycling equipment manufacturer Harris Equipment Co., Cordele, Ga., saved 50 percent per job tapping Hardox 450 steel wear plates by switching to taps from Emuge Corp., West Boylston, Mass. The 45 HRC wear plates are used as liners in the interior of its recycling products, such as cardboard balers.

Harris, which has been an industry leader in manufacturing scrap recycling and processing equipment for over 100 years, is staffed by expert factory technicians, well-trained customer service representatives and knowledgeable employees at two state-of-the-art manufacturing and service facilities in Georgia. Harris’ recycling equipment is highly regarded as trustworthy and exceptionally durable. The Harris engineering group has years of experience and employs the latest innovative cutting edge technology to design safe, cost-effective equipment.

Engagement of a tool’s cutting edge with a workpiece generates a cutting force. Such a cutting force combines tangential, feed and radial forces, which can be measured by a dynamometer. Of the three cutting force components, tangential force is the greatest. Tangential force generates torque and accounts for more than 95 percent of the machining power. See dynamometer.

High density and excellent chip evacuation provide increased productivity for various slot milling applications

Ability of the tool to withstand stresses that cause it to wear during cutting; an attribute linked to alloy composition, base material, thermal conditions, type of tooling and operation and other variables.

In addition, the insert cutting edge is designed to generate light cutting force and stable cutting even under heavy chip load. The inserts are available in grade AH3135 boasting high fracture toughness and AH120 with wear resistance for long tool life in various materials.

“The Emuge tap is long-lasting, minimizing the need to perform tool changes. Now we have at least an extra hour every week to run more parts. You really do get what you pay for,” said Parks. Even though the Emuge tap costs $50 more than the incumbent tap, it lasts much longer so that only 17 Emuge taps are needed for annual production of the liners as compared with 75 of the competitor’s taps. Parks continued, “We haven’t broken an Emuge tap yet.” Harris Equipment is now testing more Emuge taps, including the larger diameter 1" (25.4 mm)–8 C-Ti style to see where more improvements can be made, including in even harder material ranging up to 50 HRC.

Parks has been pleased with the assistance provided by Scott Lowe, Emuge national accounts manager; Gene Cone, metalworking specialist for MSC Industrial Supply Co., the Emuge distributor for Harris Equipment; and Dylan Bowles from Emuge tech support. In addition to determining the right tap for the application, the Emuge team made important recommendations for proper speeds and feeds. “Emuge taps have increased the quality and performance of our machining process,” Parks said. “Hand chasing threads and tap breakage are now a thing of the past.”

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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.

To withstand the enormous amount of wear and friction that its recycling equipment must endure, Harris uses materials that are hardened and abrasion-resistant to build reliable, long-lasting, products. These materials are challenging to machine, in the 35-46 HRC hardness range.

Now that the Emuge taps have been implemented, productivity has increased over 20 percent in the number of holes per tap, saving Harris 50 percent of its cost per job. Harris manufactures the liners in a wide range of sizes, from 6 x 10" (152 × 254 mm) to 32 × 84" (813 × 2134 mm) with an annual cost savings estimated at nearly $6,000 when using the Emuge taps.

“We were using budget-priced taps and were constantly breaking them, changing out the tooling and having to repair parts due to tapping issues,” said Parks. “Emuge recommended performing a test with its tap compared with the incumbent tap in our challenging application, and the results have exceeded our expectations.”

Cost-effective double-sided inserts with multiple cutting edges, with one side for the right hand and the other for the left hand

With a single Emuge 3/4" (19 mm) – 10 3BX C-Ti style tap, Harris is now producing 300-400 holes on the huge Hardox 450 steel (45 HRC) wear plates. “Before using the Emuge tap, we were only able to thread up to about 67 holes at most without the tap failing,” said Parks. “In fact, the Emuge tap still performs well after 400 holes,” he said.

The increasing number of delivery vehicles supplying an increasing number of boxes is generating a stream of cardboard, paper, plastics and metals that need to be handled and recycled. As a result, demand is strong from the recycling industry for Harris Equipment’s recycling products, including small paper balers, mega shredders and shears.

“Our customers demand the highest quality equipment with performance that will outlast any of our competitors’ products,” said Heath Parks, industrial engineer/programmer at Harris Equipment. “We produce 55 percent of the recycling and waste equipment in the industry, so we need to continually ensure we are using only the best tooling, engineering and construction products.”