Tooling Tailored to Your Machining Centers

What if a cutting tool and holder set could suddenly make your machining center cut better? Not just a little bit better;a lot better. That’s what BadAxe Tooling Solutions says it can deliver with its Smart Tool tooling assemblies engineered to run on specific brands and models of machining centers.

These tool-plus-toolholder combinations grew out of vibration analysis technology that once required the user to analyze every tooling and machine combination to optimize the cutting process for each. Now, the tooling packages come pre-engineered to optimize milling processes on major machining center brands such as Okuma, Haas, Doosan and Bridgeport, with still more in the works.

The Smart Tool assembly consists of a toolholder tailored to a specific machine’s dynamics, as well as an end mill with a custom tool overhang length selected to optimize the dynamic resonance of this overall machine-and-tooling combination. This assembly (with retention knob) is balanced as a unit and delivered in a package that also includes interactive, web-accessible software that allows the user to quickly determine the optimum combination of spindle speed and depth of cut in various applications.

The extent of performance improvement will vary, but the Smart Tool group claims that the tools can often double metal removal rates and tool life through heavier depths of cut and smoother cutting.

BadAxe Tooling Solutions is the result of a collaboration among several companies with expertise in toolholding, cutting tools, machining dynamics and distribution. The BadAxe Smart Tool is currently available for many machining centers.  With a growing portfolio of options available for many more milling centers, customers will have access to more affordable, higher performance machining, with their existing equipment, says the company.

Smart Tool cutting displays can be found in the booths of Briney Tooling Systems and Fullerton Tool in the West Hall, Level 3, and several other displays throughout the show.