When Rules of Thumb Don’t Apply

8 Feb 12

The old rule of thumb that tooling typically represents less than three percent of total tooling cost doesn’t necessarily apply to hard metal machining.

As a mould manufacturer, Minco improved its cavity hogging and reduced bottlenecks in a key operation on a popular hardened stock with a facemill featuring three flutes with 6- sided inserts.

When the operation was optimized with a TaeguTec milling cutter, tooling previously represented more than 30 percent of the total machining cost. Although that cutter ran 10 percent slower than a competitor, it actually proved more cost-effective. Much lower tooling costs more than offset the gap in speed.

Want to improve process economics for roughing mould cavities in hardened stock? Take a tip from Minco Tool and Mould Inc., which capitalized on an “exception that proves the rule” in machining tooling economics— and saved handsomely as a result. With 85 employees, the Dayton, US, OH mould and die maker operates 24/5 or 24/7, depending on volume.

The operation at issue is rough milling of mould cavities/cores in an increasingly popular mould stock, 15-5 PH stainless steel hardened to Rc40. The alloy owes its popularity to excellent polishability and corrosion resistance at the finishing stage. But back at the roughing stage, unfortunately, it’s a bear. It’s abrasive and gummy, and really heats up during cavity roughing, which often leads to sudden cratering failures at the cutting edge. For that reason, Minco couldn’t risk running the operation unattended. The free cutting TaeguTec mill ran at lower temperatures in hardened 15-5 PH steel in Minco tests.

Insert geometry ensures that most of the heat goes into the chip, which keeps the workpiece itself cooler. Cooler running eliminated cratering-type insert failures that plagued the operation before.

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