Aerospace

Could The Highest Price Cutter Be The Least Expensive?

An evaluation of different cutting tool technologies for machining carbon fiber reinforced plastics

Getting To Know “Black Aluminum”

An introduction to CFRP

Five-Axis Trimming Of Composites

Here is video of the five-axis motion required to trim a relatively simple composite component.

Abrasive Waterjet Helps Make Composites Affordable for Boeing

Boeing overcame fixture costs and other challenges of machining large composite parts by opting for waterjet instead of milling.

Exit-Side Drill Penetration Without Delamination

Slow-motion video shows the effect of a micograin tool coating in drilling CFRP.

Machine-Ready Blanks Allow Immediate Production

Striving To Be Partners, Not Shops

The two divisions within this business machine complex parts for the medical and aerospace industries. So in that sense they’re shops. However, in order to grow with their customers, they realized they had to be more than just providers of good parts. They needed to serve as their customers’ manufacturing partners.

Enhanced Extruded Machining Stock For Close Tolerance

Applying A High Speed Machining Discipline Without The Speed

In this shop, high speed machining makes sense at 4,000 rpm. While the disciplines the shop put in place made a new 15,000-rpm profiler dramatically more productive, high speed machining would have remained valuable even if the new machine never came. Acoording to a co-owner of this shop, high speed machining has no need for speed.

Get Better Before You Get Bigger

Rather than making a major new machine tool purchase just yet, this shop is finding additional capacity on the equipment it already has. What once was a vertical machining center will become a flexible automated production center for unattended machining.