supplier: Iscar Canada
end user: Wejay Machine Products
Wejay Machine Products, based in Kingston, ON, delivers a range of services including five axis CNC machining, custom equipment building, welding, large structural fabrication and wire EDM. Customers are predominantly in the aerospace and nuclear sectors and industrial machine building. Production runs tend to be short and highly varied, with a wide variety of materials to be machined. That variety means versatile tooling is a must-have.
About a year ago, Wejay started using the Iscar Canada Deca IQ threading insert kit. The kit includes the SER 1000 M16TT-JHP toolholder along with a range of inserts in PVD coated IC908 carbide, an exceptionally versatile grade used for hard and high temp alloys, austenitic stainless and carbon steel in high speed applications, from roughing to finishing. The kit offers inserts in 20, 24, 28 and 32 threads per inch, which matches well with the fine threads Wejay machines. Perhaps most importantly, the insert geometry has five double sided corners, providing a total of 10 cutting corners.
The first time Wejay’s Iscar Canada rep brought in the kit, shop foreman Ed Jansen was intrigued immediately.
“We were really interested because of the versatility,” he recalls. “One tool with multiple inserts is always very handy in a shop like this, where you’re doing smaller quantities and different materials all the time, where you’re always having to change out.”
A lot of time is saved in edge switching because instead of swapping out inserts, the operator can more often just loosen the insert and switch it to a new edge, Jansen says.
“It improves time and efficiency. And we’re getting ten edges for the same cost as two, since the weight of the insert is the same in both cases and you pay by the weight of carbide.”
The thin design of the SER 1000 M16TT-JHP tool holder is especially helpful, because it means the tool can be manoeuvred into confined spaces, closer to the moving parts of the machine.
“If you’re turning, you can get the tool closer to the chuck,” Jansen says. “Now that we can get closer to the chuck and get a more rigid setup, it’s improved the quality of the work.”
Jansen also says that wear has improved, although because production runs tend to be short it’s difficult to quantify in per-workpiece terms. “We don’t go through as many inserts—and these days, the more you can get out of an insert, the better.”
