3 New Ways to Maximize Your Steel-Turning Operations

By Chad Miller, Product Manager –Turning and Advanced Materials

When a new insert grade comes to market, it typically reflects a compromise between impact and wear resistance – toughness and hardness. The reason being is that cutting tool companies often develop grades to maximize performance in specific manufacturing conditions, but a grade made for one situation can prove less productive in another. 

For example, manufacturers that want to machine at fast cutting speeds usually choose an insert grade with high hardness and heat resistance, but these tools often break in interrupted cuts. And on the flip side, a tougher tool lacks the heat resistance necessary to withstand the elevated temperatures generated in high-speed machining.

There is, however, three new ways for shops focused on steel-turning applications to overcome this common conundrum: TP2501, TP1501 and TP0501. These three new insert grades, which feature our next-generation Duratomic® technology, achieve the elusive balance of toughness and hardness when machining steel alloys, stainless steels and even cast iron.

Plus, the application areas for our latest TP grades overlap to cover every possible steel-turning need, whether the goal is versatile, balanced or high-speed productivity. And as machining challenges continue to change, these grades provide shops with options.      

TP2501, for example, is the tougher, general-application grade of the trio. It provides the broadest working range and is a good starting point for those processing short runs of parts in various steel alloys. The operations may include rough machining and some interrupted cuts. The toughness of the grade permits with- or without-coolant application. Overall, the focus of the TP2501 grade is on reliably completing jobs and not so much optimizing operations for maximum output.

For higher-production situations where there’s time to optimize the machining parameters, the TP1501 grade provides a higher hardness for increased cutting speeds. Typical applications would be in the automotive industry, where a combination of maximum parts-per-hour production and solid reliability are goals. Because of the grade’s higher hardness and maximized edge toughness, it brings enhanced wear and deformation resistance in low-to-medium temperature, semi-interrupted cutting conditions. Coolant use with TP1501 is optional.

Engineered to perform well in turning operations that generate high temperatures, such as long, continuous passes at heavy depths of cut, the heat-resistant TP0501 grade can be run without coolant in many situations. A balance of high edge hardness and toughness boosts the wear resistance of TP0501 inserts, especially for more stable high-temperature, continuous cutting conditions. TP0501 is made to cut all types of steels, with a particular emphasis on high-alloy workpiece materials.

Overall, these new TP grades provide the often-unachievable balance of hardness and toughness to truly optimize machining operations. And in combination, they represent an integrated, efficient solution for steel-turning operations industry-wide.

If you have questions about these new TP grades, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You can also sample one of these new grades for free by visiting freeduratomic.com and answering a few basic questions about your steel-turning application.

About the Author  

Chad manages Seco's turning and advanced materials product lines, including all CBN and PCD products. When he's not helping customers implement advanced metalcutting solutions, you can find him training for and running 5K, 10K and 1/2 marathon races and triathlons.  

New Duratomic

Guest blog by Peter Zelinski, Writer and Editor for Modern Machine Shop

Chrome is the New Black

Certain products succeed long enough that the product brand acquires its own cachet apart from the originating company name. In certain circles, Seco’s “Duratomic” is like that. The toughness and wear-resistance of this cutting tool coating have made it successful in steel machining applications such as the one portrayed in this video. When the coating was introduced in 2007, Seco says it represented the first time a coating had been manipulated on the atomic level. And in few days, the company says, Duratomic will be introduced again.

Launching April 1, a complete overhaul to the Duratomic line will improve upon the previous successful coating with new coating technology delivering 20 percent greater life across most of the tool’s applications, including heavy, low-speed turning applications that are commonplace among oilfield manufacturers that have applied this tooling in growing numbers in recent years.

Another important feature to be introduced is “edge intelligence,” the company says. The dark color of Duratomic inserts has made edge wear difficult to see. This has been a challenge in high-volume facilities that change inserts frequently, because inserts with unused edges sometimes get discarded. The new Duratomic addresses this challenge with a multilayer system that the company says makes tool wear easy to visually gage.

Learn more by visiting the Duratomic site, which includes a countdown clock ticking the moments until the line’s relaunch.

Check out the original blog post from March 26, 2015, on mmsonline.com. 

About the Author

Peter Zelinski has been a writer and editor for Modern Machine Shop for more than a decade. One of the aspects of this work that he enjoys the most is visiting machining facilities to learn about the manufacturing technology, systems and strategies they have adopted, and the successes they’ve realized as a result. Pete earned his degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and he first learned about machining by running and programming machine tools in a metalworking laboratory within GE Aircraft Engines.