Greenleaf Ring Max groove cutters
Greenleaf Corporation, USA, offered an expanded line of Ring Max ring groove cutters. Intended for the oil and gas industry, they are claimed to finish machine API ring grooves in less than one minute of cut time. Designed to use fewer components for greater dimensional accuracy and repeatability from groove to groove, their design ensures accurate seating and secure locking of the insert cartridge into the cutter body. Standard Ring Max features and benefits include roughing and finishing of ring grooves in Inconel 625 clad overlay in less than a minute.
Iscar Tang-Grip parting and grooving tools
Iscar, Israel, had a clutch of new tools and inserts in this and other categories. First of my examples are Tang-Grip tangentially clamped single-ended inserts for face grooving. These feature rigid clamping for face grooving in a 25 to 500mm penetration diameter range, with high feed rates, interrupted cuts and excellent surface finish. The free, unobstructed chip flow results from the absence of an upper jaw, as in other clamping systems, very important in deep grooving applications The combination of tangential clamping and free chip flow results in high reliability, improved tool and pocket life, and a solution to the problem of inserts pulling out during retraction. The same insert can be used for both right- and left-hand tools, with C-type chipformer and Sumo Tec grade IC808 for excellent performance on a wide range of materials and cutting conditions.
Iscar Swisscut upgraded
Upgraded Iscar Swisscut inserts feature an innovative oval-shaped hole that offers important improvements. With the previous range, different tools and inserts were needed for back and front clamping orientations. The new design uses a special screw that can be accessed and operated from both tool sides. In the previous line, the screw had to be fully removed for insert indexing. As the clamping screw was small, it could easily fall and disappear inside the machine or on the floor. In the upgraded range the insert can be indexed without fully removing the screw, with no risk of falling parts and easier and faster indexing.
Iscar Penta-IQ parting and grooving
One of those deceptively simple-looking designs that could well be injection-moulded, the new Iscar Penta-IQ-Grip line for parting and grooving operations employs a 5-edged insert for much deeper grooving and parting applications than previous pentagonal inserts. Its innovative dovetail clamping structure improves insert rigidity in the pocket and therefore its capacity for recessing and holding side forces. Three insert sizes are available for parting 20, 30 and 40mm diameters.
Iscar Dove-IQ-Grip heavy-duty grooving
The Dove-IQ-Grip line for deep heavy grooving features very rigid dovetail clamping with a user-friendly locking mechanism with frontal access. It takes just a half-turn to clamp or unclamp the insert. Chip flow is unobstructed by an upper jaw or screw cavity. Standard sizes are between 10 and 20 mm. Iscar Flashturn small size inserts
In many turning applications companies tend to use larger inserts than are actually required for the machining parameters being applied. Carbide between the minimum sizes of cutting corners is effectively wasted. Iscar has therefore introduced a wide range of Flashturn small size inserts, providing an economic advantage incost per cutting edge. Inserts are thicker than standard inserts of similar sizes, to improve durability. The new inserts are available in a wide range of geometries, corner radii, chipformers and the most advanced carbide grades.
Kennametal’s coated PCBN
Advanced hard turning, or the use of superhard polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) cutting tools for machining hardened ferrous materials like cast irons, is sought across a number of key manufacturing industries. Hundreds of millions of brakes discs, brake drums, flywheels and wheel hubs are required annually in motor vehicle, heavy equipment, and other industries, but the promise of superhard tools has been stalled due to the tendency of these expensive tools to shatter and break under the extreme forces required.
Kennametal’s proposed solution was ‘Beyond Shield’. For machining grey cast iron brake disks and brake drums, Kennametal´s Beyond Shield PCBN inserts and clamping system is claimed to provide up to 20% reduced tooling cost and up to 30% longer tool life compared to conventional systems. Conventional dimple-style clamps attempt to hold the cutting insert in place with direct point contact, which can break both clamp and insert under high pressure. Beyond Shield met the clamping challenge with a three-point clamp design that applied clamping force toward the front of the insert, closer to the cutting edge, and significantly reduced the vibrations that lead to cracking and failure.
In cast iron machining, constant chip bombardment cuts down clamp life. Beyond Shield, also adaptable to standard toolholders, provides a carbide-clad clamp that improves resistance to wear from chip flow. With a unique ‘multi-modal’ PCBN structure, Kennametal´s KBK35 grade has increased cubic boron nitride content for increased wear resistance and longer insert life in both roughing and finishing operations. A chemical vapour deposition (CVD) coating protects against thermal breakdown, and post-coat treatments improve cutting-edge toughness. Field tests have shown greatly improved tool life. For parts involving aged cast iron, Kennametal is also introducing grade KB1340 to the Beyond Shield family. In brake-disk field tests versus standard PCBN inserts, KB1340 increased performance to 1700 pieces versus 1500 for the regular PCBN insert. In the same test versus ceramic inserts, tool life increased from 120 pieces to 4200.
Safety ‘Up!Grade’ turning inserts
Safety launched two new hardmetal grades for turning, T9300 with MT-CVD coating and T8300 with PVD coating.
The T9300 line has two members – T9315 and T9325. The substrates of both are made from functional gradient material, the surface area of the sintered hardmetal being enriched by cobalt binder. This combines high rigidity, hardness and resistance to plastic deformation with enhanced resistance to crack initiation and propagation. The T9315 is intended for continuous cutting of steels under stable cutting conditions. Its main features are high temperature resistance and long-time durability in cut. Parameters like temperature and time in cut are lower than with T9325, but this grade gives good results in case of unstable conditions including interrupted cuts.
The T8300 line has three variants – T8315, T8330 and T8345. These gradescombine submicron carbide substrates with different Co binder contents with a newly developed PVD coating for toughness and improved adhesion. The main advantage of the new grades is prolonged lifetime during machining of stainless steels, cast irons and steels with hardness up to 64 HRC. With des-ignations based on ISO513, the T8315 grade is aimed at higher cutting speeds for machining M, K, N and H groups of material. T8330 is the general purpose grade, especially for M, P and K materials, whilst 8345 is the toughest, primarily for M and S groups.
Sandvik tools
Sandvik CoroCut QD for deep grooving and parting off CoroCut QD builds on the well-proven Q-Cut and CoroCut ranges, expanding the options for these processes with a flexible, simple-to-use and easy-to-select tooling range. The focus in development includes a new tool material and a user-friendly tooling design with a smart yet simple clamping mechanism. The insert geometry makes the chip narrower than the groove to provide a parting off operation with good chip control and surface finish. The PVD insert coating offers better adhesion and improved edge-line qualities. Seco X4 four-edged insert for grooving and parting-off
Another possible candidate for injection moulding, the Seco X4 concept utilises a four-edged insert for optimal cost efficiency. The robust tangential insert partners a rigid clamping system to combine machining accuracy with repeatability, high productivity and outstanding surface quality. The product range comprises groove widths from 0.5 to 3mm. Grade CP600 is the basic grade, with harder grade CP500 in reserve when more wear resistance is required. One variant is offered with the new Jetstream Tooling’s Duo, a high pressure cooling system providing two coolant streams, the first to the rake surface and the second to the clearance surface.
The tools are very flexible in use as the same toolholder can be used for every possible groove width.
Walter Cut SX grooving system
With the new flexible Cut SX tool system, Walter has reduced the number of cutting inserts required on lathes for grooving applications and on milling machines for separating and slot milling.
When inserts with two cutting edges are used, the cutting depth is limited by the insert length. Some industries, however, increasingly require very deep grooving and parting cuts. For such applications, the SX system with self-clamping, single edge inserts features positive-locking in the tool insert seat, achieved through the curved shape. This positive locking prevents the cutting inserts from being lost when under heavy load in the feed direction. Walter supplies the inserts in Tiger-tec Silver PVD grades WSM33S and WSM43S for steel, stainless steel and materials with difficult cutting properties. All can be supplied in insert widths from 2.0 to 6.0 mm.
Part one - of interest to powder metallurgists
Part two - milling
