Hitting a home run might require thinking outside the ISO box, he says. “If you’re striving for consistent 15 percent to 25 percent increases in productivity, you should look at changing your whole process. Using trochoidal toolpaths during roughing operations is one such approach.”

The critical difference between thread milling and tapping is that thread milling creates a more even, smooth thread on the workpiece, while tapping can be somewhat jagged and rough.

VBMTInsert

Winter and the other experts are happy to help customers decode the ISO standard and find the optimal insert for a given application, but as Winter points out, even the perfect grade, shape and coating will often bring only small gains.

2. Dirt and dust particles will adhere to the oil hold and lead to unsmooth coolant flow. Coolant change as early as possible is recommended.

“If we see that a shop can enjoy a 20 percent improvement in either tool life or productivity, we’re happy to present that to them in a written pre-sales test report and then prove it to them on the production floor,” Navarrete says. “Return on investment is generally quite fast when adopting a new tooling technology like this, with some customers saving tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s pretty much a no-brainer.”

Kip Hanson is a freelance writer and manufacturing consultant. Hanson, who is the proprietor of KAHMCO LLC, has more than 40 years experience in manufacturing, machine tools, fabrication and ERP systems. In addition, Hanson is a contributing editor at Manufacturing Engineering​, Shop Metalworking Technology and others. He has been writing about manufacturing technology since 1998.

We continues to enhance our visibility and reputation, including exhibitions all over the world and we also actively taking corporate social responsibility.

Indexable tools make machine setups faster and easier while significantly reducing the downtime associated with tool changes, but choosing the best insert can be tricky. Here’s what you need to know.

Now that we understand the basics of how each process works let’s look more closely at some of the advantages and disadvantages.

What is CNMGinsert

Sandvik Coromant is not alone. Abhay Chaubal, product manager for the Americas at Seco Tools, is quick to point out that the company’s MF2 chipbreaker and RCMT insert solve the all-too-common chip control problem encountered when using round inserts.

This article will look further into the difference between thread milling and tapping to help you understand what is best for your needs.

This compares the cost of hiring to the investment of owning your own formwork. Its it simply the cost of purchasing divided by your typical hire cost. Depending on how you operate, this should be between 3 and 11 pours.

TNN Engineering Brisbane is a competitive and reliable precision CNC machining and manufacturing service specialising in small run components and assemblies. Contact a team member at our Brisbane machine shop today to arrange a quote, appointment or to just discuss your machining requirements or challenges.

“The flip side of the FIX8 is that you can take much heavier cuts than with a WNMG- or CNMG-style rougher, and do so even on lighter-duty machines,” he says. “And since you have eight cutting edges to work with, the cost per part is generally lower as well.”

Taper tap. This tap is usually used at the beginning of the tapping process but does not cut thread to the bottom of a hole due to its tapered point.

Thread milling is a somewhat complicated process that requires a machine capable of helical interpolation. What does this mean? Essentially, your CNC machine requires three axes of simultaneous movement. Two axes perform circular motions while the third moves perpendicular to these circular planes. If you have a CNC machine built in the last 10 to 15 years, then it should have this capability. In addition, thread milling provides a more even thread that is less prone to breaking, thus improving the strength of the thread vs a tapped thread.

Unfortunately, you’ll also find it chock-full of exceptions. In their ongoing effort to address the machining world’s ever-evolving landscape, cutting tool manufacturers continue to develop novel, often proprietary solutions that don’t fit neatly into any standardized set of guidelines.

With a wealth of abrasives options available, there’s no reason to settle for anything less than the best one for the job. Here are three new products you need to know about: Norton’s RazorStar, 3M’s Cubitron 3 and Osborn’s Honey Badger.

While choosing the right turning insert and toolholding system is critical, so is proper process development, says Seco Tools Indexable Product Specialist Jay McCord. Too often, shops don’t follow the manufacturer’s feed and speed recommendations and fail to use a scientific approach to troubleshooting, including documenting one change at a time.

This is the cost to deliver hire forms to site. Choose $0 if you pickup and return hire formwork yourself. This is the cost to delivery and return.

Iscar USA, a member of the IMC Group, is another cutting tool manufacturer pursuing continuous improvement opportunities for its customers, which is why the company isn’t afraid of setting aside the ISO 1832 standard when it makes sense.

Keeping an assortment of brazed carbide tool bits and solid carbide rounds in the tool crib is probably a good idea. You never know when you may need to hand-grind a special tool for an oddly shaped part or hard-to-reach area.

Choose between the minimum hire period of 3 days or upto 14 days. See how delays or longer pours affects the return on your investment.

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Trochoidal turning (also known by the trade names Dynamic Turning and VoluTurn) can be done with ISO-standard round inserts, but it’s more effective when the insert has a rail interface for graduated indexing, as with the company’s CoroTurn 107 RCMT.

“Our 3D-printed Jetstream coolant clamps deliver cutting fluid to the correct location for different turning applications like heavy roughing, roughing and finishing,” he says. “They can also be used with our Steadyline brand of modular boring bars, which have an internal dampening mechanism to eliminate chatter, improve surface finish and increase productivity.”

“There’s a lot to consider during insert selection,” says Robert Keilmann, marketing portfolio manager at the company. “ISO turning tools are suitable for a great many applications, but given the huge variety of parts and materials in this landscape, not to mention the evolution of CNC machine tools, we’ve found it necessary to develop turning tools that provide effective chip formation and extended tool life on lower-horsepower machinery. Our FIX8 line does exactly that.”

But considering that a new toolholder and box of inserts sell for a few hundred bucks or so, it’s a small price to pay for the potential benefits.

This payback calculator will give you an indication of how many pours it will take to pay off your own set of form work. It will also calculate your percentage return on your investment based each time you pour with your own formwork.

Machininginsertnomenclature

Product Name: CNC insert Application: All type of CNC machines Shape: Various shapes Quality level: High Surface: Coated or uncoated Trade terms: FCA, CPT, etc

Manufacturing Day events, including one hosted by MSC and its supplier partners, offer high school and college students hands-on experience with industry tasks, equipment demonstrations and opportunities to talk with professionals about  career opportunities.

Cutting toolinsert

At TNN engineering, we have both thread milling and tapping capabilities, and we can discuss whichever might be more suited to your needs. So if you are looking for metal manufacturing & precision engineering services in the Brisbane area, be sure to contact us today, and we can get your project up and running in no time.

Plug tap. This tap has less taper to its tip and is almost as valuable as a taper tap in starting the process, but it cuts thread further down into the hole.

In thread milling, a single tool is used to machine holes of various sizes. This reduces the cost of purchase of the tools and reduces the time lost in the replacement of the tool when machining a hole of a different size.

The thread quality of thread milling is far superior to that of tapping and is one of the main benefits of using thread milling. In addition, due to the threads of thread milling being created by a smaller headpiece, less material is lost, and the thread size can be adjusted in smaller increments. On the other hand, tapping essentially brute forces the threads, leading to a loss of material and strength and a more jagged finished product.

Turning inserts types

“That’s one of the reasons why we’ve begun marking our inserts with QR codes, which allow the user to scan the code with a smartphone and pull up the product page showing the correct cutting parameters for the material you’re currently turning,” McCord says. “They also provide traceability back to the manufacturing process in case of a problem and make it easier to dispense individual inserts from a vending machine. As with many of our customers, Seco Tools is very focused on continuous improvement, and this is just one more example of that.”

For most turning operations, though, indexable carbide tools make machine setups both faster and easier while significantly reducing the downtime associated with tool changes. Which still leaves one problem: deciding which insert is right for the job.

A good place to start is by learning the ISO 1832 standard, which, according to the International Organization for Standardization, “establishes a code for the designation of the usual types of indexable inserts for cutting tools in hard cutting materials or any other cutting materials, in order to simplify orders and specifications for such inserts.”

Thread milling is a process that can take a long time, and while it produces a higher quality thread than tapping, tapping is a lot faster. If you are working on a project that doesn’t require extremely precise and high-quality thread, then tapping is your best choice. However, if the object being manufactured has very little margin for error, then thread milling is a better choice.

MillinginsertIdentification

CNCInserts

“One of the drawbacks of ISO standard tools is that they typically rely on a top clamp, eccentric screw or some combination of the two to hold the insert in place,” says Robert Navarrete, national product specialist for parting, grooving and turning. “Yet these can allow a microscopic amount of insert lift, leading to vibration and reduced tool life. A dovetail-style geometry and on-edge clamping system eliminate this by taking pressure off the screw and redirecting it into the pocket.”

That was a very abbreviated tour through the ISO 1832 standard, now on its sixth edition and spanning 24 pages. You’ll find it a helpful starting point on your road to insert selection.

Ready for a quick ISO introduction? Pick up a “typical” box of turning inserts—some CNMG432 roughers, for example, or VPGR331 profiling tools—and follow along:

Tapping is a fairly simple way of cutting thread into workpieces. Essentially, you use a special type of drill head called a tap that cuts the thread to the specifications you want. There are three main types of tap:

Navarrete is talking about Iscar’s HELITURN line of tangentially clamped turning tools. As he explains, these offer greater stability in the pocket, not only improving tool life and surface quality but also significantly increasing the tool’s metal removal capabilities. “It also provides much better predictability, an attribute that’s particularly relevant to shops that wish to run lights-out,” he says.

“We’re also seeing great success with our PrimeTurning offering, which uses a similar chip-thinning strategy, as well as the eight-sided CoroTurn 800,” Winter says. “Yes, these solutions require some changes to your turning strategy but are well worth the time investment for shops that are working with difficult materials or looking for ways to leapfrog their competition.”

CCMTInsert

Bottoming tap. This tap has almost no taper to its tip, thus cutting thread to the bottom of a hole. However, due to the lack of a taper, it is much harder to start the tapping process with this tap.

Like Winter, he encourages shops to explore alternative toolpaths, with ISO inserts or otherwise. He also notes that recent innovations in toolholding can bring significant results.

Formwork is an investment that keeps making you money every time you pour. This percentage is the return on your initial investment based on hire cost savings. Compare this to what you might get from a bank.

Threading a workpiece is an integral aspect of the metalworking process and, thus, of just about any industry requiring any type of manufacturing.

There’s just one caveat, though, and it applies to each of the proprietary solutions described here and elsewhere: Machine shops must invest in new toolholders, followed by reprogramming and process optimization.

Thread milling arrived on the scene originally due to NASA’s need for an alternative to tapping in manufacturing high-quality threads in hard materials such as titanium for space flight.

Choose your size of manhole you are pouring. This is the size of the internal formwork. The calculation is for the internal form only. Hire costs are based on current market prices.

CNC machine tools can be programmed to use thread milling to adjust the thread size and pitch to minute differences. The flexibility of the tools helps provide tighter tolerances and smoother surfaces than tapping and also means you can thread any size hole with just one headpiece. Tapping is fast and simple but requires you to have a variety of tap sizes on hand.

Peruse a supplier’s tooling catalog or website and you’ll quickly find an overwhelming variety of indexable tooling. Profiling tools, groovers and threaders, boring inserts, indexable and modular drills, cutoff tools—there’s no shortage of high-quality turning tools out there, all designed to make lathe turning operations more profitable and part quality more consistent.

Thread milling can also help you process internal and external threads and substantial threaded holes such as pipe threads. This helps you eliminate the need to invest in large rigid taps to thread large holes.

“Proper insert selection depends on many factors,” says John Winter, a turning product specialist at Sandvik Coromant. “Workpiece material and geometry are high on the list, but choosing an insert with adequate edge line security for the operation—a tool that can handle interrupted cuts, for instance—is equally important.”

Mitutoyo’s new profilometer, the SurfaceMeasure 1008S, can be integrated into an array of machine setups for a variety of measurement tasks. Find out how it can help you reduce waste and buoy productivity.

From this, we can see that tapping requires a huge amount of different materials, and changing hole size means you also need to change tap size each time, which takes time and energy.

Thread millers often use solid carbide as it is hard enough to machine titanium. They also make use of indexable-insert thread mills. Thread milling is also not as hard on your CNC machine as it doesn’t require as much force to cut as a tapping machine does. It is a great choice when looking to thread larger holes and is a versatile, high-quality threading method. However, it requires background knowledge and know-how in order to be performed effectively, including needing a computer programme to operate. At TNN Engineering, we have the capacity to provide high-quality thread milling services specified to your needs.

ZCCCT has been in the tungsten carbide industry for decades, the well-established management and production create the outstanding brand image in domestic market. Our CNC inserts are produced from most trusted and professional suppliers in the market. All the products are manufactured by using supreme quality metal and ultra-modern tools in compliance with set industrial norms. Moreover, we are using the strict tests on different quality parameters to assure the flawlessness at customer’s end. The competitive price will ensure our customers to stay competitive in the industry to create long-term cooperation.

1. The little chip particles and dust will cause jamming in the oil hold. A fine mesh filter should be used to prevent such jamming, especially for small-diameter drills.