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A New Vision for RevitalizingManufacturingp. 25

Raising the Bar in Hydro Impeller Machining

GM’s Innovative Move intoRapid Prototyping

New Developments in Wired EDM

New Products

Editor’s Desk

Association New

Personalities

Listings

Careers

Advertiser Index

C O N T E N T S

5 Editor’s Desk: Investing in Manufacturing’s Resurgence

7 Feature Story: Raising the Bar in Hydro Impeller Machining

11 New Products: GM’s Innovative Move into Rapid Prototyping

13 Case Study: New Developments in Wire EDM

15 Product Reviews

19 ViewPoint: A New Vision for Revitalizing American

'Engineers have figured out a way to streamline the new car development process by using lasers to actually “grow” or print car parts.” p. 11

For exact machining of rotary tables rings, cylindrical grinding machines, and lathes. Schrunk offers standardized magnetic chucks with radial lpole pitch. p. 15

'What’s most important is the repeatabilityaccuracy and surface quality finish which will affect the bottom line for hydropower developers.” p. 7

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Buckets Require Long-Reach Contouring

Key machining challenge is to contour-mill the run-ner buckets, essentially the paddles on a very sophisti-cated paddle wheel where every machined surface has a hydrodynamically correct curvature. A typical runner, made from a stainless steel casting, weighs ten tons, measures 11 feet across and has 22 carefully contoured double buckets. It can take months of continuous five-axis, long-reach milling to complete, leaving behind a ton and half of stainless steel chips. Virtually all milling in-volves 19 inch shank lengths. Nevertheless, at the end, as-machined surfaces must be smoother than 32µ and geometrically correct within 0.010 inch, in order to pre-vent turbulent flow while in service.

“It’s like a large-scale cav-ity milling job, with one im-portant difference,” says In-gersoll’s Chris Murray, who devised the tooling solution. “The contour on each bucket involves undercuts, which you’d never see in an injec-tion mold.”

Strategic Process Change

Previously, Canyon Hydro, headquartered in Deming, WA, finished the buckets by

manual grinding, using CAD/CAM templates to check di-mensions and contours. Typical cycle times for an 11-foot runner were six months, involving 100% attendance by skilled operators. Typical tolerances were 0.035-0.040 in. The process was more than adequate for its time. It was the era of low oil costs and easier environmental regulations, which left hy-dropower as a secondary source of power along with solar, wind and nuclear.

Anticipating greater demand for alternate energy sources including hydropower, the company in 2009 made the strategic decision to auto-mate runner machining. They built a free-standing, lights-out capable CNC cen-ter just a few towns away in Sumas.

The key machine is a FPT five-axis CNC Floor Type Hor-izontal Mill equipped with, a 2-axis rotary table, 80-sta-

“The runner is the heart of a hydro-power turbine, converting water flow to the rotary motion that drives the generators.”

tion automatic tool changer and two interchangeable heads: a 360◦ Universal 3 + 2 Bi-rotational head and a 29 inch extension head. A skele-ton crew of 2-4 CNC machin-ists works 8-hour shifts to handle support functions as the machine runs largely un-attended, sometimes over-night as needed to maintain delivery schedules. “Chip-making itself is essentially hands-off,” says Mr. Hansen.

Accuracy, Surface Quality Trump Cycle Time Savings

As to tooling solutions, manu-facturing engineer Mike Han-sen invited proposals from all mainline vendors, stressing the long-reach aspect along with the need for lights-out process security, exceptional accuracy and standard tool-ing. “Cycle time savings were really secondary to repeat-able accuracy and smooth finish,” he said, “as we knew the business would become more efficiency-competitive. Standard tooling was essen-tial to eliminate all the uncer-tainties and expenses inher-ent in special tooling.

Most vendors proposed spe-cial tools nevertheless, or asked for up-front money for development. Only Inger-soll’s Chris Murray offered full application support for free, and he found a standard tool able to do most of the job and a modified-standard to handle the rest. “It was

RAISING THE BAR IN HYDRO IMPELLER MACHINING

A state-of-the art CNC machining center makes a Deming, WA company the country’s leading supplier of large hydropower generating systems west of the Mississippi – right in the heart of the hydropower market. And some advanced tooling and heavy

customer support from Ingersoll Cutting Tools helped make it happen. As a result, Canyon Hydro completes huge ten-ton rotors (called runners in the hydropower industry) in one third the time as before, and to much better accuracy and surface finish for higher efficiency over the runners’ projected 30-40 year service life.

Featured Story

Canyon Hydro makes about twelve of these 11 foot “runners” each year in its free standing CNC machining center. Complet-ing the buckets takes 500 hours of long-reach contour milling, with some undercuts. Solutions from Ingersoll enabled complete machining with largely standard tooling, improving accuracy from 0.045 to 0.005-0.010 in., holding 32µ finish quality, thereby improving operating efficiency of completed hydropower plants.

Ingersoll modified the cutter shown, revising the cutter diameter, overall length, extensions, chip gullet areas and pocket positions. These modifications resulted in a long reach button profiling tool with undercutting capability and plenty of clearance -- using standard inserts.

Scaling Up Brings New Tooling Challenges

It was February, 2011 before Mike Hansen converted the larger runners over to the automated process, and had to scale up the tool sizes ac-cordingly. Principal model in this class is the 11-footer, with an average annual vol-ume of 12 pieces. Geometry of the runner buckets - -six-axis contours, long reaches mostly and some undercuts -- cried out for a ball mill for the most part. Sheer size of the work-pieces called out for a tool much larger than most stan-dard models. “To do a three-foot contoured cavity with a

their up-front helpful atti-tude that led to our choice,” Mr. Hansen said. “Sure we would test each of Chris’s ideas in trials later on, but only to verify recommenda-tions and optimize param-eters, not to pick a vendor. We were looking for a mar-riage, not just a first date.”

The company started up by automating the smaller run-ners, diameters down to 4 ½ feet, gradually working up to the larger parts. The smaller runners were han-dled by a standard 1 inch In-gersoll FormMaster Pro spe-cially suited for long-reach roughing and finishing. To defeat harmonic vibration,

the three-flute tool features circular, serrated inserts in a “timed” array. Each insert is turned “five minutes” from the other, so its edges en-gage a different area of the cut and the whole toolpath is covered progressively with every full cutter revolution. Pips in the seat pocket mate with dimples on the back-side of the insert to keep it in exact position.

The operation ran smoothly with no chatter, reducing cy-cle time on average by 50% vs. manual grinding. Tool life was more than enough for lights out operation as needed.

one-inch ballmill or Form-Master would take forever,” Mr. Hansen said. “Besides, in stainless the insert would wear out too quickly for se-cure lights-out operation.”

Chris recommended a com-pletely standard 2-inch In-gersoll ProBall indexable ball nose for the bulk of the work, and a modified standard Form Master button cutter to handle the undercuts. “The button cutter works like a standard contour mill for most of the pass, then like a standard contour mill for most of the pass, then like a T-slotter when it reaches the undercut portion along the outer edge of the bucket,” Mr. Murray said.

Setting Parameters

Hansen and Murray worked together, right at machine-side, to establish machining parameters for the ten-ton 410 NM stainless steel cast-ing. With the big ballmill, the standard for mainstream roughing is 15 IPM, 650 RPM, 3/8 in. DOC, ¼ in. stepover. For finishing it is 45 IPM, 825 RPM, 0.050 in. DOC, 0.100 in. stepover.

The undercut portions re-quired the modified button cutter and involved the lon-gest reaches: 20.5 in. from spindle to face. Roughing parameters here are 30 IPM, 700 RPM, 0.375 in. DOC, 0.100 in. stepover. For finish-ing the settings are 45 IPM,

825 RPM, 0.050 in., DOC, 0.035 in. stepover. Hansen uses these param-eters during the day when the place is manned, back-ing down the feedrate about 10% as a precaution for lights-out operations. In all cases the inserts last long enough for absolute process security over 12-15 hours; some last 45 hours per edge. “Impressive, especially in stainless steel, which can be a wildcard in any shop.”

The Key Tools, Close Up

The big two-flute ProBall ballmill features serrated inserts at the ball end plus heavy duty side cutting in-serts farther up the active length for larger diameters and deeper cuts. “Visitors to our shop floor are amazed that such a large ballmill

comes standard,” Mr. Hansen added. “Without it we’d be faced with either a standard or some compromise tool.” A screw-on style coupling en-ables in-spindle tip shuttling to 0.005 in. repeatability so there’s virtually no dead time for tool servicing.

More a modified standard than “special,” the button cutter is needed to access one portion of the cut which involves undercutting much like slotting. The backside

of the tool must be effective upon withdrawal, to create the “top” of the slot. The tool uses standard inserts, with the cutter shank extended and insert seats repositioned to present cutting edges on both the front and backsides. Mike gave Chris the CAD file on the starting and finish-ing geometry of the outer lip

Ingersoll modified the cutter shown, revising the cutter diameter, overall length, extensions, chip gullet areas and pocket positions. These modifications resulted in a long reach button profiling tool with undercutting capability and plenty of clearance -- using standard inserts.

of the bucket, then Ingersoll product specialist Mark Teno and his team back at Rock-ford took it from there.

Ramping It Up —Carefully

Working together on the shop floor, Hansen, Murray and lead CNC machinist Ken Neal have bumped up the pa-rameters about 15% overall since February, always pay-ing attention to accuracy, surface quality and process security in a very chatter-prone operation. “It’s as much a matter of listening as anything else,” says Mr. Mur-

ray. “I don’t think anybody can truly optimize a long-reach stainless steel milling operation over the phone.” Not surprisingly, all Canyon Hydro’s runners are com-pleted much faster and with much less operator attention as a result of the company’s strategic move to CNC auto-mation and advanced tool-ing. Cycle times average 50% less, labor costs are vir-tually nil. The mainstream 11 footer runs even better: 500 hours vs. 1500 before. And the tool life is reliably long enough to enable lights out operation as needed. “What’s most important is

the improvement in repeat-able accuracy and surface fin-ish quality, which will pay off for hydropower developers whose bottom line hinges on efficiency of these runners. Holding 0.005-0.010 on ge-ometry and near-mirror 32µ finishes at our end will make a measurable difference at theirs.”

For further information, con-tact Ingersoll Cutting Tools, 845 S. Lyford Road, Rock-ford, IL 61108-2749. Phone 815 387 6600, fax 815 387 6968. Email info@ingersoll-imc.com, www.ingersoll-imc.com.

Fullpage.indd 5 9/14/12 9:20 AM

At GM’s Warren 3D Rapid Protype Lab in Warren,

Mich., engineers have figured out a way to streamline the new car development pro-cess by using lasers to actu-ally “grow” or print car parts. When designers and engi-neers come up with something new, the rapid prototyping team uses lasers in two differ-ent processes to rapidly print resin-based parts in 3D, ready to be finished and applied to in-development models.

Stereolithography (SLA) uses a photo-sensitive liquid poly-mer goo that reacts and hard-ens when hit by a laser. By di-viding the production process into many small layers, ex-tremely detailed parts gradu-ally emerge. When one layer is complete, a platform holding

the object sinks further into the goo and production of the next layer begins. The finished part can then be applied to a prototype automobile design.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) also uses lasers, but instead of goo makes use of a photo-reactive powder that hardens

upon contact with a laser. The process functions much the same way as SLA from here on out: one small layer is hard-ened from the powder, then a platform drops to expose more of the powder for the next layer. Scrap pieces can be recycled back into powder form to be used again.

GM has accomplished some truly remarkable things using SLA and SLS. Everything from interior pieces to front split-ters for wind tunnel testing can be created in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks as is the case with traditional methods like wood carving or sculpting parts from clay. The result helps GM get ideas from sketchpad to showroom more quickly and efficiently.

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Featured Product

Scrap pieces of materials can be recycled back into powder form to be used again

Lasers Turn “Goo” into Parts for GM’s Prototypes Almost Instantly

Brown’s manufacturing facility in Meriden, Conn, is regularly called upon to help develop components or assem-blies that others have chosen to steer clear of.

“Our participation often begins with the review of a de-sign con-cept proposed by the customer,” adds Brown. “Our engineering group reviews the application and makes recommen-dations that may reduce cost, improve manu-

facturability, or improve the per-formance of the device or assembly.”

Founded in 1951, Lyons Tool and Die made a name for itself producing com-plex custom metal stampings and progres-sive dies. Since then, the com-pany has branched out. Today, Lyons serves manufacturers in diverse industries from medical to aerospace, and its capabilities include preci-sion metal stamping,rapid prototyping, CNC machining of complex parts, produc-tion wire EDM,component assembly, and overall project management. The FDA-regis-tered company also has Class 10,000 cleanrooms for pack-aging and assembling medical devices and im-plants.

Lyons produces a wide range of tooling for its internal

stamping opera-tions, includ-ing progressive dies (steel and carbide), coining dies, compound dies, progres-sive eyelet dies, progres-sive compound dies, and second-ary dies as well as a variety of tooling for its rapid-proto-typing department. Stamp-ings are done not only in metals such as stainless steel, titanium, aluminum, beryl-lium, brass, copper, bronze, and carbon steels, but also in engineered plastics and com-posites including Kapton®, Mylar®, Teflon®, and other insulating materials.

In 2005 Lyons purchased a new FANUC 12 in. wire EDM machine — its third FANUC EDM — from Methods EDM. The exclusive North Ameri-can source for FANUC EDMs, Methods EDM is a division of Methods Machine Tools, Inc.

At Fastenal, we’re ready to tailor a truly complete metalworking supply program for your business. That includes the best products in the industry and the #1 industrial vending system, FAST SolutionsSM. But the key is our local people – factory-trained specialists to assist with product selection and applications, and a dedicated local sales representative to make sure you always have the right product, when and where you need it in the shop.

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Fullpage.indd 57 9/14/12 9:25 AM

Making the Most of a Wire EDM

Case Study

“If they need it quick, they call on us,” says Dave Brown, Vice President of Lyons Tool and Die Com-pany. “Difficult parts with short lead times are our specialty.”

Job #2873 10-09-2012 2012 Coropak Ad CMYK Cutting Tool 7.75” x 10.5”

Fullpage.indd 1 9/14/12 9:25 AM

18 | OCTOBER 2012 | CTE

new product focus

. Stor-Loc’s MM20 has a triple-section design, which allows users to combine drawers of various heights in the left side, middle and right side of the unit. The cabinet provides 13,500 sq. in. of drawer space, and each drawer, which can be subdivided into compartments, has a 400-lb. capacity. The cabinet includes a double-wide drawer with 4" of usable height and 18 standard-width drawers in various heights. Stor-Loc

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. Mikron Corp. Monroe’s CrazyDrill Flex solid-carbide drills have a flexible center section between the drill section and the clamping shank to provide elasticity. The through-coolant drills start at 0.3mm in diameter, increasing in 0.05mm increments for standard tools and 0.01mm increments for specials, and are for drilling up to 50 diameters deep. In addition to conventional cutting fluid, users can apply a lubricant that combines air, oil and mist. Mikron Corp. Monroe

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NPF.indd 18 9/14/12 1:43 PM

wage inflation in emerging markets, such as China, has been running at a clip of 10% to 20% now for a decade or more. In the past, when a lot of global manufacturers were deciding where to establish their manufacturing bases, they were attracted to the very low cost of labor in certain emerging markets. Recently however U.S. labor rates have remained rela-tively stable, and labor rates in the rest of the world have been catching up [see chart right]. This narrowing of the labor-cost gap is beginning to influence how companies decide where they want to establish themselves. Going forward, I think you’re going to see two things. First, as this relative labor attractive-ness becomes more balanced,

be more U.S. companies that choose to build their next in-cremental plant on domestic soil due to the combination of currency benefits, relative-ly more attractive labor costs, and low-cost energy sources.

some of the other factors that really favor the U.S. be-come more important in the decision-making process. We should see more Asian and European companies choose to make their headquarters the U.S. In addition, there will

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