How to do a right polishing
Ask any apprentice polisher what the most important thing about his job is and he will say “Putting on a great, high gloss polish.” Ask any veteran and he will say, “Making a profit for the shop.” […]
How to save time on polishing ribs
Ask most shop owners what the number one reason is for new molds failing their first sample and you will most likely hear “material sticking in the ribs.” It is not uncommon for a tool to have its ribs and slots repolished two, three or more times before the tool works cleanly. The following is [...]
How to do a good cleaning in a mold
Few people within the moldmaking industry will argue that cleaning and maintenance are critical processes for maintaining the life and reliability of expensive equipment and ensuring the quality of the end product. […]
How to save time in polishing
Ask any polisher what the hardest part of his/her job is and most will tell you the same thing – stoning. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here is a simple technique that not only makes stoning easier and more enjoyable, but actually cuts 30 percent off the time it takes to do a [...]
High-Speed Mold Finishing solution
Indexable-insert ballnose endmills for high-speed finishing of molds can be purchased as individual units from a standard endmill catalog, or assembled from components of available modular end-milling systems. […]
How to do Sharp Edge
To provide the high-performance results demanded in today’s moldmaking, many indexable-insert ballnose endmills use PVD-coated, precision-ground, micrograin- carbide inserts. Experience shows that such inserts perform best with sharp edges, which represents a departure from the conventional wisdom that extra-strong edges are required to stand up to hardened materials at very high feedrates. […]
High-Performance Finishing solution
Within this decade, advanced carbide cutting tools used with constant-chip-load CNC cutting strategies have dramatically increased material-removal rates in roughing of mold cores and cavities. The combination of these tools and strategies also results in dimensions closer to near-net shape, which favorably impacts subsequent finishing operations. As impressive as these roughing approaches have been, however, [...]
Do a high performance in polishing at lower cost
Both solid-carbide and small indexable-insert ballnose endmills are capable of the speeds and feeds required for high-speed finishing of molds. Moldmakers should keep in mind, however, that the indexable-insert tools offer important cost advantages – starting with a much lower replacement cost and no regrinding. […]
How to save time in a mold making
Checking for Positive DraftOn occasion tool marks can be so deep that they reduce the draft or the polisher accidentally takes off the draft. The key is to always check for positive draft by putting a six-inch scale on the wall and comparing the angle it makes to the parting line. It takes just a [...]
Introduction to Principles of Heat Treatment
If we consider the primary metal of steel, which is iron, there are a number of features that we can observe immediately about the metal: […]