Product launch features 1,050 new products for milling, drilling and turning
Hundreds of manufacturers from Canada, the US and Mexico, as well tooling distributors congregated in Chicago, IL, on April 5 for Tungaloy America’s North American launch of TunGForce, a new line of tooling.
The event, the first of its kind and size for Tungaloy in North America, was presided over by Jacob Harpaz, the charismatic and high energy president and CEO of Tungaloy’s parent company IMC.
Harpaz was on had to do a one-man show and present what he described as innovative solutions to today’s cutting tool problems. Indeed, he noted that both IMC as a whole and Tungaloy generate a significant percentage of sales from new and innovative products. And that’s because of the focus on research and development. Harpaz says that new products less than five years old represent 40 per cent of Tungaloy’s revenue.
“Accelerated machining”
Harpaz’s messages were clear: the trend to “non-stop 24 hour continuous cutting” requires high productivity tools. And to operate in such an environment means “accelerating machining” at the cost of tool life.
“The only way to improve productivity is to improve cutting speeds and feeds, and reduce tool life.”
While the argument may sound counter-intuitive to some, Harpaz’s point is that to achieve accelerated machining and hence make productivity gains, it requires increasing speeds and feeds during a machining cycle, which, of course reduces tool life. But since tooling represents only 3 per cent of the total operating cycle time, focusing on the cost of tooling will not improve your productivity.
“Even if we provided tooling free of charge, it will not improve your productivity…if you look at price, tool life and productivity, the one that will reduce your cost per part is productivity.”
New products
For many who attended Tungaloy’s TunGForce product launch, “information overload” might aptly describe the experience. Harpaz introduced a multitude of new products, which just touched the surface of the 1,050 new tooling solutions that are part of the new line. The tooling solutions included new inserts with innovative geometries, coatings and special surface post treatments for milling drilling and turning applications.
By way of example, in the TunGForce milling family, Tungaloy’s new DoTwistBall inserts feature a unique twisted shape insert in radius and high feed geometries. The rectangular shape and twisted clamping insert seat provides anti-rotation, something difficult to achieve for radius cutters, according to the company. The inclination on the helical cutting edge forms small chips for high performance, while a raised cutting edge from the seating surface avoids chip contact with the screw head to extend screw life.
In turning, one of the new products includes the MiniForce-Turn, a double sided insert with positive cutting edges clamped into a pocket with a dovetail structure for high insert stability. The same insert can be used for both bore and external applications.
In drilling, the DrillForceMeister drills in large diameters feature a quick indexing mechanism and unidirectional clamping the insert. The unique corner geometry of the drill head reduces burr at exit and the overall optimized geometry results in what Tungaloy describes as “excellent chip formation and smooth chip evacuation.”
Worth the trip
Approximately 50 Canadian manufacturers attended the Tungaloy launch and for some, the trip was a worthwhile experience.
Nash Kanji, senior technical coordinator with Optima Manufacturing Inc. in Calgary, AB, and Ken Handsaeme, owner of OTPC in Delti, ON, who both use Tungaloy tools in their shops, were interested to learn about new tools that could help improve processes. For Zeno Hadadean, CEO of Integrity HD, a job shop in Windsor, ON, impressed with the use of recent tooling from Tungaloy being used in his shop, he was keen to learn about additional tooling he could incorporate into his machining operations.
“Some of the products we’re using from Tungaloy have performed extremely well. We’re using face mills. The tooling actually did what Tungaloy said it would do — using a 3 in. cutter to remove as much material as a 4 in. cutter would remove and not pushing our machines too much but using the insert to do the work – so we’re excited to learn about other tooling and see if we could benefit from new tooling we’ve seen here. It’s rare to find a cutting tool that does what a supplier says it will do but we’ve found this tooling with the Tungaloy face mills and we’re interested to find more.”
