Feedmax™ -P Goes Above and Beyond Typical Hole Drilling Technology

Manufacturers typically look to universal drills to help reduce the need to maintain large, diverse tools stocks. However, a one-size-fits-all solution often cannot provide the tool life or cutting speeds of tools optimized for a given application or material. To meet the needs of manufacturers for whom performance and tool life are the most critical factors, Seco developed the Feedmax™ -P, which incorporates geometric features optimized for superior surface finishes and the highest productivity in iron and steel.

Designed to run at extreme speeds and feeds, the Feedmax™ -P has large tapered flutes and straight cutting edges to ensure greater strength and efficient heat dissipation. The precise location of the through-tool coolant holes and the larger flutes quickly and efficiently evacuate chips, and the need for pecking is eliminated when the machine maintains appropriate coolant pressure. For this drill design, Seco engineers placed the through-tool coolant holes as close as possible to the ideal position on the cutting edge.

With narrow land margins, the Feedmax™ -P reduces friction and diminishes the wear of the connection between land margin and corner chamfer to promote better chip formation and decreases heat generation. This geometric feature also minimizes the risk of chipping, which gives the drill a more predictable tool life and higher application security.

To further improve the performance of the Feedmax™ -P, Seco Tools utilized a special double-layer TiAIN (titanium aluminum nitride) coating to increase the drill’s oxidation resistance. A thick bottom layer promotes heat dissipation while the top layer helps prevent built-up edge. In addition to proper heat dissipation and good edge retention, this double-coating process promotes excellent adhesion and eliminates flaking to promote long tool life.

Thanks to its advanced TiAIN coating and strong point geometry, the Feedmax™ -P makes cutting speeds of 623 feet/min possible in SMG P5 without sacrificing tool life. But to reap the full benefits of the Feedmax™ -P’s advanced holemaking technologies, shops must set up the drill properly and run at the correct speeds and feeds. When they do, the performance of the Feedmax™ -P amazes most users. More impressive still, those basic parameter values are actually relatively conservative based on the actual performance capability of the drills. By following the recommendations, manufacturers can achieve highly effective chip evacuation and enjoy the full value of their tool investment.

Achieve Cutting Perfection at Every Trochoidal Turn

By: Don Halas, Product Manager, Threading and Grooving API at Seco Tools

When machining costly components, such as those for steam and gas-turbines, process security is vital, in particular when it comes to grooving. The operation is one of the most challenging when machining these components because many of their features limit accessibility, while being made from heat-resistant super alloys and stainless materials often results in high and irregular cutting forces, vibration, poor chip control and residual stresses within the components.

But there is a way to overcome these challenges. The solution is multi-directional turning (MDT) and grooving along with a trochoidal turning technique. MDT allows you to turn a workpiece in both directions when grooving and profiling – providing approach options for working around odd part features, while trochoidal turning is basically the same as its milling counterpart but done in a grooving operation. This is an area where Seco excels, and our comprehensive metal cutting solutions have perfected the trochoidal turning process, making it a more productive and profitable metal cutting solution.

The trochoidal turning technique prevents chip jamming, vibration and residual stress for overall improved process security. During the operation, radial depths of cut are reduced to 15% of the insert diameter, so chip thickness is significantly less and feed rates are higher.

In trochoidal milling, the cutting tool creates a slot wider than its cutting diameter using a series of circular cuts, or a trochoidal tool path. The technique ensures that an optimal chip load is maintained, producing ideal chip widths and thicknesses,

Trochoidal turning is best performed with round or conical inserts, and Seco provides a major advantage over other tools performing trochoidal turning maneuvers because our unique Secolocä clamping method combines a V-shaped top clamp with serrated contact surfaces between the underside of the insert and the toolholder. Our MDT line is universally suitable for a variety of applications including grooving, profiling, turning, parting-off and threading.

When a customer is cutting a costly component, such as a jet engine part, they want to feel secure that their holding insert will not be separated from the holder pocket. Our full round insert is designed for the high temperature super alloys that would quickly wear other inserts during turning operations. Such a strong and stable tooling system helps shops reap the trochoidal machining benefits of reduced cutting pressure, better chip control and longer tool life. Plus, the process makes it possible to produce extremely small, complex, tight-toleranced and thin-walled precision components out of the difficult-to-machine materials used in the aerospace and power generation industries.

How Many Flutes Does My End Mill Need?

An end mill with a higher flute count isn't a better tool unless it's the best match for the job at hand. To offer ideal performance, end mill flute counts need to match three characteristics of each job, including the capabilities of the machine tool, the properties of the material and the design of the part. When you select your tools, evaluate these criteria on a case-by-case basis.

First, look at the capabilities of your machine. High flute counts typically mean high feed rates, which heavy-duty, high-horsepower equipment with lower RPMs can't maintain. Instead, for these machines, select end mills with lower flute counts that incorporate larger chip gullets or flute cavities, the chip evacuation spaces between cutting edges.

These end mills work best for applications such as full slotting, which engages the full tool diameter and takes large radial stepovers.  Although it's possible to use a tool with a high flute count for slot milling, it's more efficient to approach the task with three or four flutes and make use of the larger spacing among them for good chip evacuation.

Conversely, machine tools with lower horsepower and higher RPMs typically struggle to complete the kinds of heavy roughing involved in full slotting with lower flute-count end mills. Instead, these machines' forte lies in tasks that require fast feed rates and lighter radial stepovers and jobs with lower chip volumes that can evacuate efficiently through the smaller chip gullet of a higher flute count end mill.

Workpiece material forms the second criterion in end mill selection. The more freely a material cuts, the more chip volume it creates, so aluminums, plastics, soft steels and non-ferrous materials need low flute count tools and stepovers as high as 50% of tool diameter.

At the other end of the scale, super alloys typically work best with higher flute counts because these materials are more difficult to cut. In fact, attempting to cut challenging materials such as Inconel 718 with a four-flute end mill and full slotting will produce disappointing results. The hard material will create premature tool wear, and the heat generated from this type of heavy milling will work harden the material, changing its molecular structure and making it even more difficult to cut.

Heat transfer from overly aggressive cutting adds stresses that cause the material to bend, flex or twist, which then requires secondary processes to remove the stress and straighten out the part. To avoid that scenario, hard materials that push back need shallower depths of cut and lighter stepovers with six or seven-flute tools. Higher flute counts produce the higher cutting pressures necessary to machine these materials without heat transfer.

Along with machine characteristics and material properties, part design also becomes a consideration in end mill selection. High-speed machining with large depths of cut, high feed rates and wide radial stepovers produces excellent results with lower flute counts on simple 2D outside profiles. Complex multi-level 3D features, however, need lower speeds and feed rates for the small, precise moves with higher flute-count tools to produce these highly dimensional contours.

By the numbers, shops can generalize about flute counts in simple terms. Four-flute designs suit slot milling and ultra-heavy cuts with high radial stepovers and large metal removal rates. New designs of five-flute end mills have come as close as any tools to offering a universal option, with the ability to produce reasonably high MRR and take on anything from slot milling to side mill finishing. Six, seven and nine-flute end mills suit machines with fast lookaheads, high feed rates, high RPMs and lower horsepower create less byproduct heat in parts and do a great job with difficult-to-machine materials.

In the final analysis, the best end mill suits the job at hand, and that means choosing the flute count that's right for the combination of machine, material and workpiece characteristics. When our customers face tool selection challenges, the Seco Tools Tec Team always can help determine which end mill will offer the best machining performance possible.

Turn to a Fine Balance Between Hardness and Toughness

At first, hardness and toughness may seem like interchangeable concepts, but they actually exist at opposite ends of a continuum that defines indexable and solid tool performance, particularly when it comes to carbide inserts. For any given application, there is an optimal balance of hardness and toughness – and Seco has worked diligently to offer a range of tools that can meet the diverse needs of manufacturers.

Hardness represents wear resistance, which translates to a tool's ability to withstand byproduct heat during metal cutting. The temperature resistance that correlates with hardness plays a huge role in cutting tool behavior and selection, particularly when temperatures can easily rise above 1,400° F in the cutting zone. Hard carbide can withstand and dissipate those temperature levels and, therefore, handle the high heat generated in continuous cutting. However, high hardness levels can make metal brittle, which explains why heat-resistant carbide tools tend to chip in situations that produce large amounts of pressure or vibration.

At the other end of the continuum, toughness represents pressure and impact resistance, which correlate with a tool's ability to withstand high feed rates, heavy depths of cut and the impact associated with interrupted cuts. In exchange for durability, however, tough carbide becomes vulnerable to heat, which makes it less than ideal for high-speed, continuous cutting.

To find the perfect balance between toughness and hardness, shops can use tool behavior to help find and correct factors that cause shorter tool life or unexpected breakage. For example, inserts that develop large craters in continuous cutting applications show their lack of wear resistance and indicate the need for a harder tool. Conversely, if a hard grade fractures in a continuous cut, wear analysis quickly shows the need for a tougher tool instead. In these instances of tool fracture or breakage, shops should also evaluate the condition of the toolholder along with the stability of the machine tool itself and the part setup.

With the increased focus on hard part turning, shops also need to decide whether to machine before or after a material reaches its hardened state – and make cutting tool selections that match the hardness of their materials. In a "green" state, many materials test at half the hardness they demonstrate after hardening, with an obvious effect on tool selection, life and behavior.

Additionally, case-hardened and through-hardened materials present two very different hardness scenarios. Case hardening creates a hard surface with potentially softer material underneath it, while through hardening produces a uniformly hardened workpiece. In these cases, depth of cut plays a vital role in tool selection because it determines whether the task requires an insert that can cut hard or less-hard material.

Cutting tool manufacturers strive to support their customers' success with innovative tools and thorough support for informed tool selection. Seco Tools continues to develop grades, geometries and coatings that handle new materials with excellent results, and to add new performance options for existing materials. Our Tec Team (tec-team.us@secotools.com) always stands ready to guide customers toward optimal selections for individual and unique cutting tasks.

Dynamic Duo for Aerospace: Rough With Ceramic, Finish With Carbide

By Aaron-Michael Eller and Scott Causey of Seco Tools

  

The superalloys found in turbine blades, jet engines and other critical aerospace components are some of the most difficult-to-machine materials in manufacturing, a fact that has driven the development of advanced cutting tools and materials. However, strict regulations and the materials’ physical characteristics often require the use of standard processes performed with standard carbide. As a result, the aerospace industry can find itself caught between a regulatory rock and cost-effectiveness hard place – unless manufacturers use an approach that brings conventional and advanced tooling together in one process.

Everything from aluminum and boron to yttrium and zirconium can be found in superalloys, which are formulated specifically to maintain the structural integrity of aerospace components exposed to extreme temperatures. As a result, the optimal cutting tools for these materials are usually made of ceramics, which possess outstanding heat resistance that enables cycle times that are up to 10-15 times faster than carbide in turning applications. The round inserts often used for these applications also offer two to three times more cutting edges than the equivalent conventional solution and feature excellent tool life, making it ideal for the demanding aerospace market.

At the top speed of applications using ceramic inserts, however, enough heat is generated that the metal is essentially plasticized, a problem for aerospace components. Because flight-critical parts must meet stringent regulatory standards, the fact that advanced ceramic tooling creates heat-affected zones and a brittle white layer in the material necessitates a different approach for finishing. Instead, manufacturers simply stick with ceramics for roughing and switch to carbide for finishing. But when white layer formation itself isn’t an issue, Seco offers specific PCBN grades for nickel-based materials that can finish at speeds six to eight times faster than the equivalent carbide tool.

When parts absolutely must be finished with carbide, a requirement for working with some companies in the industry, manufacturers can still achieve superior results by pairing that carbide with Jetstream Tooling^®. When roughing with ceramics, air blasting is generally sufficient for chip control, but for the high tolerances and surface finish requirements for flight-critical components, high-pressure coolant is the best way to keep chips and temperature controlled for an optimally finished part.

Of course, in the fast-moving world of the aerospace industry, the next leap forward in materials science may only be a few years or months away. Already, carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) and powdered metals used for additive manufacturing processes are presenting new challenges for aerospace shops. To maximize productivity in the face of untested materials, turn to your tooling supplier, as Seco works closely with its customers as well as partners in the materials industry to find the cutting parameters, geometries, lead angles and grades that can achieve cost-effective results. Find out more at www.secotools.com.

Look For a Partner, Not Just a Supplier

The ever-increasing pace of technological innovation across the world makes this an exciting time for consumers – and creates endless new challenges for manufacturers. Advanced materials, complex part shapes and demanding customer schedules mean that arriving at the optimal solution can be incredibly time consuming. And with the industry changing more and more every day, simply keeping up with the news of advances in manufacturing technology can be a full-time job, much less integrating that technology into your shop.

What we can’t do alone, however, we can often accomplish together. That’s why many manufacturers develop close partnerships with suppliers – and at Seco, we pride ourselves on working directly with our customers to overcome any and all part-production challenges. From the initial design and R&D phases to the final runoff that proves the process, our team has the expertise necessary to help manufacturers find and deploy the cutting-edge technology necessary for exceptional productivity.

In many cases, this process can be as easy as picking up the phone and talking to a distributor or using the Suggest tool on secotools.com. Our comprehensive range of solutions covers virtually all metalcutting applications, operations and materials, with new products released every year to help meet the needs of the rapidly evolving manufacturing sector. Whether it’s new tool geometries specifically engineered to save hours on aerospace holemaking or reengineered high-feed milling cutters that improve productivity and control a new process’ literally deafening noise, Seco has tools designed to meet nearly every need.

Our trusted manufacturing partners aren’t just customers, however – they often provide crucial assistance in tooling development. Many of our customers are pioneers in their respective fields, and when they begin creating the processes of the future, we collaborate on the required solutions. With our closest partners, Seco often begins participating in the R&D process as early as possible, and the resulting tools often find their way into our catalog. 

Of course, not every new process has the wide applicability that results in new standard products. Our Custom Products and Engineered Solutions teams can create completely custom solutions for unique metalcutting applications, all designed to meet your specifications. Tools often involve trade-offs like hardness vs. toughness, but with custom tools, that balance can be precisely tuned to your application to create a truly optimal process.

Contact your local Seco distributor today at secolocator.com to learn more about how we can work together to solve your biggest manufacturing challenges.

Three Tips for Threading Success

Often the last step in part production, threading operations can’t be redone or repaired – if it fails, the part is scrapped. To avoid these losses and realize the highest level of threading productivity, you have the make the right decisions about every aspect of the operation. Here are three tips to guide you toward correct choices and profitable threading:

#1: Tool selection and use are critical.

The process of threading begins with making a thread form on a spiral, which usually involves spirals that get smaller and tighter as parts become smaller in diameter – on larger diameters, the spirals get larger or even vertical. To make a proper thread, the tool insert must track the spiral correctly throughout a bore. Start with the proper anvil or helix angle in the toolholder, and if necessary, insert a shim seat underneath the insert to improve tracking, eliminate tool chatter and produce better gauging that creates a better thread.

When it comes to superalloys and other extremely hard materials like carbide or CBN, however, new techniques have been developed to help manufacturers thread workpieces in a hardened state, which eliminates time-consuming thread grinding and the need for potentially thread-distorting heat treatment following machining. To maintain cost-effective tool life, highly precise internal coolant, such as that available from Seco Tools’ Jetstream Tooling®, can control chips, improve surface finishes and stabilize threading without the need for external hoses, fittings and spare parts that diminish productivity and raise costs.

#2: Chip control can make or break threading operations.

Long, stringy chips that wrap around a toolholder can damage the tool's inserts and reduce their functional lifespan. Of course, re-indexing one or more inserts can correct the chipping problem and enable the threading process to resume, but needless re-indexing also wastes tool life. And if chips damage the thread itself, they can doom a part to the scrap pile. Additionally, when a chip becomes stuck inside a part during internal threading, an operator can sustain an injury attempting to fish out the chip and rescue the part, while a part loader or other robot can easily be stopped dead in its tracks after getting tangled up in chips.

Naturally, Jetstream Tooling® serves as an ideal general-purpose solution for chip control in threading operations, but in some materials, including stainless and other challenging steels, advanced coating chemistry and tool geometry can be vital to keeping chips flowing. For example, Seco’s TTP2050 grade offers alternating nano-laminate PVD layers of wear-resistant titanium aluminum nitride (TiAlN) and titanium silicon nitride (TiSiN), while the -A geometry is optimized specifically for effective chip control.

#3: Machine tool defaults may not be ideal for your task.

Machine tools ship with default modes preset on their CNC controllers, some of which produce more threading passes than a job may require. Machines also typically make radial in-feed their default cutting mode, which causes high cutting forces – and the resulting chatter and vibration – due to the insertion of the tool straight into the material. To avoid poor chip control and marred surface finishes, it's important to choose a cutting mode that uses only as much cutting force as the job requires.

Seco has committed itself to helping you resolve threading questions, match tools with specific workpiece materials – especially challenging options such as high-temperature alloys – and troubleshoot causes of chatter and vibration. For the easiest route to threading success, the Suggest tool, part of the Seco website’s My Pages digital portal, produces customized recommendations for threading tasks. And for personalized help, be sure to reach out to your Seco representative or visit SECOTOOLS.com.