Understand Your Tools

"Challenge us to help you do what you do more effectively." Those were the words of Ingersoll Cutting Tools President Chuck Edler as he kicked off the Die & Mold Seminar yesterday, which honed in on understanding the precise tools necessary for the delicate processes of mold manufacturing--milling, high-volume roughing, high-feed roughing, aluminum machining, gun drilling and hole making to name a few.

Some takeaways included:

• Optimizing millling by examining its three forces: tangential, axial and radial (the latter being the one causing the most trouble).
• You want the chip to move not the part.
• Control the forces.
• Understand deflection and rigidity.
• Understand chip thickness to help maximize tool life and minimize cycle time.
• If milling steel, don't use coolant.
• Understand the cusp that's left.  Cusp is important for moldmaking because of surface finish. Reduce cusp height.
• Constant chip load is key to achieving big gains in machining productivity.
• Leverage your technology.

Technology highlights included the Form-Master Shear--excellent for those aluminum prototype molds; the Form-Master Speed--for high-feed roughing and plunging; and, the U.S.-designed "champion" Hi Quad F--whose four cutting edges with a choice of eight different cutting edge geometries, ensures long tool life even under the most demanding applications across the widest range of materials.

See them all in action here.