Get Ready for an IMTS Experience Like No Other

By Mike Parker, Director of Engineering & Marketing 

IMTS 2012 is 5 DAYS AWAY, and we’re excited about showcasing our broad range of innovative metal cutting solutions and diverse technologies that can give you a competitive advantage. We’ll also be reinforcing our total customer commitment through a highly engaging booth environment, and encouraging you to bring your challenges to meet our solutions. 

When you visit us in booth W-1564, you’ll be able to meet with Seco applications experts who can assist you in redefining your productivity and profitability. You are also encouraged to take advantage of our Knowledge Bar Sessions, touch table, interactive touch screens and social media center for an experience like no other.     

Knowledge Bar Sessions
Expand your expertise by attending one of our Knowledge Bar Sessions where our cutting tool experts will apply their vast knowledge of specific topics to moderating peer discussion panels on a variety of metalworking topics. These hour-long sessions will take place daily in our booth at 9:30 am and 11:30 am.   

• Coating Technology: Maximizing Performance Through New Innovations 
• Hard Turning or Grinding: Making the Right Call for Your Operations 
• Milling Strategies: Determining How to Get More from Your Tools 
• Titanium Trends: Looking at the Future of Aerospace Machining 
• Optimal Holemaking: Analyzing and Refining Tool Performance 
• Aerospace Developments: Understanding Where the Industry’s Going 
• Machine Tools and Cutting Tools: Achieving the Synergy You Need 
• Negative Milling Cutters: Applying Modern Geometries for Impressive Results 
• Heavy Duty Threading: Tackling Challenging Oil Field Applications 
• Composites Holemaking: Balancing Quality and Productivity 

You can pre-register here for one or more of our daily Knowledge Bar Sessions to ensure a spot!    

Touch Table
Use our cutting-edge touch table to learn about the newest tool technologies. You’ll dynamically navigate through different materials and be able to compare and analyze data. You can also play a round of the Seco Concentration Game for a chance to win a prize. Furthermore, all touch table users will receive a free deck of Seco playing cards.   

Interactive Touch Screens
Visit our Duratomic® insert selection touch screen to discover the best insert for your needs and receive a free sample of the recommended insert in the mail. Our Productivity and Cost Analysis touch screen will give you a better understanding of how we can improve your overall bottom line through documented cost savings. Last but not least, a Custom Tooling touch screen encourages you to bring in a component drawing so that we can determine what engineering solution will best meet your unique tooling challenges.

Social Media Center
Learn more about how social media can keep you up-to-date on the latest news from Seco and other manufacturing companies. You’ll also be able to safely sign-in to your Facebook and Twitter accounts to post information.
  

See the 2011 Indy Car, win this autographed model!

Overall, we’re using the Knowledge Bar Sessions, touch table, interactive touch screens and social media center in our booth as part of our overarching goal of keeping you completely engaged and up-to-date on the latest and greatest information relevant to the metal cutting industry. And while you’re in our booth, don’t forget to check out Ryan Hunter-Reay’s 2011 Indy Car and find out how to register for a chance to win a signed scale model of it. 

About the Author 
Mike is the Director of Engineering & Marketing for Seco, responsible for marketing, product development, component engineered tooling, custom tooling, as well as working with segment specialists and machine tool builders. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis and restoring classic British motorcycles.

Three's a Charm in Fluid End Machining

By Scott Turner, Drilling Manager

Fracking, a method of releasing oil or gas from underground formations, seems to be growing in popularity throughout the United States, most notably in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Texas. After all, today’s advancements in fracking technology are making it possible to economically recover huge reserves of natural gas that would otherwise be too difficult to mine.

A fluid end is an important component of high-pressure hydraulic fracking operations, primarily for natural gas, where solution is pumped into the ground. And because fracking is such a taxing operation, fluid ends require regular replacement, typically lasting between two and seven days. 

Fluid end production involves several machining operations, from cutting and cubing to roughing and finishing. In fact, manufacturers invest a lot of time and materials in the development of fluid ends, making it critical to keep scrap at minimum. 

While Seco has all of the necessary milling, threading and drilling tools for complete, cost effective fluid end production, highly notable is its custom SD609, a special modular drilling head with a three-points-of-contact design that stabilizes deep-hole drilling, especially at the breakthrough point. During the rough machining phase of fluid end production, the SD609 can accurately drill through-holes that are more than 5 inches in diameter, and 57 inches deep, going in from each side of the part. Seco is also in the process of developing an extension for the SD609 that will enable it to drill even deeper holes.     

Prior to the development of the SD609, fluid end manufacturers were losing machining balance and finding it difficult to achieve 100 percent even cutting forces when breaking through the solid 4340 and P20 steel billets from which these fracking components are machined. The SD609 solves these issues by featuring an adjustable center drill, indexable inserts and multiple carbide guide pads shimmed close to the cutting diameter. The shimmed guiding pads and periphery insert make up the unique three-points-of-contact design that supports the drill head when breaking through the hole.

In most large, deep-hole applications, when the drilling head breaks through the bottom of the hole, there is a loss of stability and a risk of the drill head becoming damaged and interfering with the integrity of the component. There are two major advantages to Seco’s three-points-of-contact design. First of all, the center drill and pads make it possible to keep the drill straight so that it does not drill off center. This also provides stability when the drill begins breaking through the bottom of the hole. Effective chip removal is the second advantage in that the SD609 allows the chips to move past the drill head and flow out of the hole. Keep in mind, however, proper coolant flow for effective chip removal must be maintained. Seco recommends at least 1,000 psi of coolant pressure and 12 gallons per minute for coolant flow when using the SD609.    

Seco also developed a special fluted, long-reach holder that complements the SD609 and increases its capabilities. This holder helps maintain stability throughout the drilling process because its diameter is closer to the actual finished hole size. The holder, made of high tensile tool steel with chrome plating, provides the mechanical means to effectively remove chips, resulting in faster machining and lower production costs.

Overall, the SD609 brings flexibility, stability and performance to large, deep-hole drilling applications. While its primary use right now is in the machining of fluid ends, other manufacturers who require big diameter holes can benefit from this customized solution. Because Seco realizes every application is different, the company is always ready to work with its customers on developing the best possible solution for addressing a unique challenge—in fact that’s how the SD609 came about in the first place.    

About the Author  

Scott is the drilling manager for Seco, responsible for the product development, applications support and marketing of advanced hole-making solutions. In his spare time, he enjoys participating in outdoor activities such as jet skiing, snow skiing and golfing. Contact Scott at swturner@secotools.com. 

8 Reasons PCBN Hard Turning Shines in Finishing Operations

By Chad Miller, Product Manager – Advanced Materials

Recent advances in cutting tool technology have increased the acceptance of hard turning as a finishing operation of critical surfaces. In fact, hard turning with tools made from polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) is more productive, cost-effective and can produce better results than grinding when finishing hardened steel parts between 45 and 64 HRc.

Top eight reasons hard turning with PCBN tools is better than grinding:

1. A CNC lathe costs up to 50 percent less than a grinding machine.
2. When compared to a grinding machine, a CNC lathe has more machining flexibility and boasts faster tool changes.
3. CNC lathes take up less floor space than grinders and do not need flume systems.
4. PCBN tools have low-maintenance requirements.
5. PCBN inserts can produce an equal or better surface finish than grinding, while at the same time having a higher removal rate. (Results depend on the right combination of feedrate, insert nose radii and workpiece material.)
6. The structure of many PCBN grades permits for productive machining in difficult conditions, including interrupted cuts, and typically does not require the use of coolant, which keeps costs down.
7. Tool maintenance is simplified as PCBN tools may be quickly indexed to a new edge or removed and replaced with new inserts, and do not require truing or dressing to maintain the cutting profile.
8. PCBN tool inserts, combined with a plunge turning technique, produce as good or better tolerances than conventional grinding. (Plunge turning uses the entire cutting edge or a portion of the cutting edge to create an orthogonal cut. This process can reduce machining time by as much as 90 percent, producing parts with comparable surface integrity to those that are ground.)

For years, PCBN cutting tools were not a top choice among manufacturers because of their high costs, which can be up to 20 times more than conventional solutions. However, manufacturers now realize that PCBN tools make perfect economic sense in hard turning finishing operations because of their amazing efficiencies in terms of overall productivity and tool life.

If hard turning is something you’re considering for your finishing operations, Seco makes a variety of PCBN cutting tools well suited for such a purpose. Highly notable are our new CBN060K, CBN100 and CBN300 grades because they are the only solid PCBN inserts specifically developed for machining hard steel.

Similar to conventional carbide inserts, these solid PCBN inserts make use of all of their edges, which are longer than common PCBN inserts. In a study comparing these solid PCBN inserts to various tipped inserts from five different cutting tool manufacturers, cost-per-edge savings ranged between 25 and 208 percent. As an added advantage, the solid CBN060K and CBN100 grades make plunge turning possible for two reasons, properties of the grades and long usable cutting edges.

Hard turning has definitely gained momentum over conventional finishing methods and become more widely recognized as a step up in both productivity and cost effectiveness. And as an increasing number of manufacturers continue to embrace PCBN hard turning, the economic benefits will continue to add up.

About the Author

Chad manages Seco's 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. Chad can be reached at cmiller@secotools.com.

Let Us Gear You Up for Success

By Todd Miller, Manager, Rotating Products 


Big gears are big business these days thanks to the wind turbine, energy, heavy truck and mining industries. In fact, the global gear market is worth $155 billion today, and is growing 4.7 percent annually. As a result, there’s been a lot of demand for indexable carbide cutting tool solutions.


Indexable carbide insert cutting tools for gear manufacturing have been around for decades, allowing manufacturers to increase their feeds and speeds compared to conventional high speed steel or powdered metal tools. However, modern advancements in indexable gear hobbing technology allow gear makers to achieve greater productivity, higher quality and more options than ever before. 


Ever since we introduced our first indexable carbide-insert gear hob in 2005, Seco has garnered global acclaim as a true innovator in this field because this technology has proven to generate higher productivity levels over traditional hobs.

Most recently, we have been working to build upon the success of our unique modular concept for gear hobs by exploring design variations to create an entirely new cutting solution. The result: a twin-start indexable carbide-insert gear hob that takes advantage of the increased power and speed of modern CNC gear-cutting machines to achieve increased productivity.


Featuring two half helixes on the same gear hob module, this new solution, when compared to the single module design, allows for running at feedrates that are twice as fast to reduce gear manufacturing cycle times by half — all while maintaining the highest possible quality levels. 


Testing proved the twin-start indexable carbide-insert gear hob reduced the production cycle time of a large seven-foot, module 12 gear ring from 22 to three hours for a more than 85 percent time reduction over the previously used high speed steel (HSS) hob. (For those of you who’d like to see this new gear hob for yourself, we’ll have it on display at IMTS 2012 in booth W-1564.) 


In general, carbide insert tools can produce cutting speeds between four and eight times faster than HSS tools, producing more parts in less time. Another advantage is that carbide tools can often run without coolant, which provides additional environmental benefits and cost savings.     


Keep in mind, however, that taking advantage of indexable carbide insert tools means you must have an extremely rigid machine and setup that can handle higher speeds and feeds. Therefore, you can’t expect to put our tooling on older machinery and expect it to optimally perform. 


As the gear manufacturing market continues to grow and the demand for high-performance cutting tools continues to rise, we are a total solutions provider that’s ready to assist you in any way possible. We have an extensive engineering background when it comes to the design and development of gear milling cutting tools, from v-shaped cutters to profile roughing and finishing cutters to gear hobbing cutters. We can also assist you in creating a customized configuration to achieve a specific goal.


About the Author

Todd is the manager of rotating products for NAFTA, responsible for solutions and applications involving face, square shoulder and disc milling. Todd and his team of product experts are dedicated to providing a consistent, high-level of support to Seco customers throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. In his spare time, Todd likes to bowl and cheer on the University of Michigan football team.

Add OOMPH! to Your Power Generation Machining

By Todd Miller, Manager, Rotating Products

As global energy demand continues to multiply, manufacturers serving this industry have the means to experience growth for many years to come. However, it’s up to the cutting tool industry to continuously provide these manufacturers with new productivity-improving solutions that enable them to keep up in this booming market.

Seco, for example, has extensive experience in the power generation industry, from OEMs through all levels of the supply chain. Such industry ties enable us to help our customers within this segment achieve the highest possible levels of productivity, efficiency and profitability through new, highly innovative cutting tools.

Among our most recent developments for this arena is a new indexable carbide insert pull-broaching solution. This broaching innovation is twice as fast and significantly more productive than the traditional high-speed steel broaches typically used to machine power generation components out of steels and super alloys, including turbine discs for gas turbines. In fact, in comparison testing, we’ve found that pull broaching with our carbide inserts is the fastest way to rough slots in turbine discs.  

We produce our indexable broaches in short 12-inch long segments, which we then pin together to provide the total length necessary to complete the external form. One section of the broach may handle the form’s chamfer portion, while another tackles the root of the form. Our indexable broach employs incremental “steps” so that the height of the carbide inserts can control the feed rate. You can also adjust the height between each insert depending on what type of feature you’re looking to create.

While there is the initial investment for the broaching segments, you’ll actually gain substantial cost savings in the long run when you consider the massive productivity gains and lowered inventory costs you’ll achieve over the use of high-speed steel broaches.

After purchasing the cutter bodies, all you need to do is index the inserts. When designing the cutters, we try to incorporate standard inserts wherever possible. Depending on the form, however, some special inserts may be needed—which still keeps your overall costs lower than if you were using high-speed steel tools. Plus, with our indexable solution, you’ll never have to pay for tool regrinding again.

If you have any questions about pull broaching, feel free to send me an email or get in touch with your local Seco sales representative. We’re currently working on several exciting projects that involve pull broaching and indexable carbide inserts, and we’d be happy to discuss how this machining process can help you achieve a more lucrative power generation business.  

About the Author

Todd is the manager of rotating products for NAFTA, responsible for solutions and applications involving face, square shoulder and disc milling. Todd and his team of product experts are dedicated to providing a consistent, high-level of support to Seco customers throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. In his spare time, Todd likes to bowl and cheer on the University of Michigan football team.   

12 Reasons to Optimize Your Tooling Stock

By Magnus Tillman, Business Solutions Manager


THINK FAST: Do you know how many cutting tools exist in your shop at this exact moment? Do you know how much disposable tooling your company uses, or even what type of insert you need to order at any given time?

If you can’t confidently answer these questions, it’s probably time to consider an advanced vending program for your operations, especially if you’re trying to manage a whole slew of part numbers.


Need some convincing? Here are the top 12 reasons—not in any particular order—as to why owning a point-of-use automated inventory control device with reporting and order management capabilities – such as our new compact SupplyPod – makes perfect business sense.

1. Inventory control devices keep things organized, allowing employees to get the items they need to do their jobs in a matter of seconds as opposed to wasting productivity time rummaging through a tooling abyss. 

2. For shops that use the “locked supply cabinet” approach, inventory control devices save supervisors valuable time because they no longer have to stop what they are doing to distribute tooling to employees. 

3. Companies can effectively manage their tooling supplies by having the ability to set dispensing limits by day, month or even shift.

4. Inventory control devices reduce overall tooling spends as well as eliminate stock-outs and UPS red shipments. 

5. If an employee dispenses a tool that typically machines up to 150 parts and he/she returns within the hour to check out the same tool, the company is privy to the fact there might be something wrong with a machining process. 

6. Inventory control devices can force tool regrinds instead of dispensing new tools, which helps play a role in reducing tooling spends. 

7. Rapid refill features ensure fast, accurate tool replenishment without any repackaging requirements, thereby improving efficiency and eliminating stock shortages. 

8. Employees are more accountable for the tools they use because inventory control devices manage item issuance and monitor tool usage with take/return, check-in/check-out and serialization functions. Essentially, this level of control allows management to know who dispensed what and for what reason. 

9. Inventory control devices help eliminate excessive or wasteful consumption because employees can no longer “hoard” tooling that could become lost or accidently discarded. 

10. Purchasing agents spend less time on tooling requisitions because inventory control devices with reordering and order management capabilities make it quick and easy to maintain adequate stock of critical tooling. 

11. Inventory control devices are simple to use and easy to implement into any work environment. The SupplyPod, for instance, only requires a power source and Internet connection for full functionality. It interfaces with modern ERP systems for continuously updating business environments. 

12. Most inventory control devices are customizable or come in a variety of configurations, which enables them to adapt to the constant changes within the manufacturing industry.

Overall, one of the easiest ways to bring more efficiencies and cost savings into your operations is by optimizing your tooling stock. Advanced inventory management systems, which includes the Seco SupplyPod, can help get you there as well as give you a competitive advantage over the other guys.


If you have questions about point-of-use automated inventory control devices, including our SupplyPod, please don’t hesitate to contact me.


About the Author

Magnus works closely with Seco customers to provide them with business solutions that increase their productivity and profitability. With a mechanical engineering degree from Wennstromska University, he began his metal cutting career as a shift supervisor for the insert quality control department at Seco Tools AB. In 2000, he joined Seco Tools U.S. as manager of production control for NAFTA insert manufacturing and took over his current role as business solutions manager in 2006. In his spare time, Magnus enjoys traveling, golfing, hockey and spending time with his family. Contact Magnus at mtillman@secotools.com.

3 Reasons to Put a Dynamic Spin on Your Hard Milling Efforts

By Gary Meyers, Product Manager - Milling

With the mold and die industry’s increased workloads these days, many shops are investing in new state-of-the-art equipment to effectively tackle hard milling applications and increase productivity. As part of this latest trend, dynamic milling techniques are becoming increasingly popular, especially when using solid carbide cutting tools. Perhaps it’s because newer machine tools provide the higher feed rates and RPMs necessary for successful dynamic milling.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the dynamic method for milling, it’s an optimized roughing approach that combines large cutting depths with relatively small radial engagement when cutting steel. This strategy is also very effective when machining at 60 Rockwell or harder. This method, also known as peel milling, peels off small amounts of material at high speeds and feed rates.

Here are three ways dynamic milling can make a big difference when working with a wide range of steels:

1. With this technique, the tool path constantly adjusts to ensure the most efficient cut possible by maintaining constant chipload and engagement of the cutter. Furthermore, an optimized toolpath maximizes material removal rates.
2. Dynamic milling utilizes the cutting tool’s entire flute length, which helps eliminate the need for multiple depth cuts.
3. With the required CAM programming, dynamic milling can increase removal rates by up to 300 percent when compared to traditional methods.

Dynamic milling removes a lot of material at a very high feed rate, which creates pile-ups of big, long chips that can clog and damage a machine’s conveyor. Therefore implementing the right cutting tool is crucial.

Seco created the Jabro™ Solid² JS554 3C for just these situations. It’s a high-performance four-flute shoulder end mill with a long cutting edge and built-in chip splitters.

The JS554 3C uses its chip splitters to break the chips up into to a small, manageable size, resulting in improved chip evacuation from the cutting zone as well as from the machine. Furthermore, the JS554 3C’s full cutting length and chip splitters, when combined with the dynamic milling method, generate increased levels of productivity and significantly higher tool life due to a consistent load.

If you have questions about dynamic milling techniques or our new JS554 3C, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

About the Author

Gary works closely with product development, marketing and field sales to effectively launch new Seco milling products into the market as well as ensure their long-term success. Outside of work, he enjoys outdoor activities, which includes running 5k and 10k races in the summer and downhill skiing in the winter. Contact Gary at gmeyers@secotools.com.

VIDEO: Jabro™- Solid² JS554 3C