Peter Zelinski

Peter Zelinski Editor-in-Chief

What Shops Want In Machining Centers

This study summarizes a few of the findings in a newly released report on CNC machining center buyers. The 233-page report focuses on the perceptions and priorities of this group

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It's Not Much To Look At

A familiar scene occasionally unfolds when I am paying a visit to a shop. I discover a clever metalworking tool, device or system that the shop invented itself.

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Metalworking's Butterfly Effect

Forecasting the weather accurately more than two weeks out is almost impossible, because that span of time leaves the chance for small disturbances to have big results. Meteorologists refer to the "butterfly effect"—the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings could, in theory, set off an atmospheric chain reaction that ultimately would lead to a weather change.

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Die/Mold

Five-Axis Mold Making Software Keeps Tires Rolling

Unless it goes flat, a tire is something most of us take for granted. In fact, the process of making a tire is very specialized and is becoming more sophisticated all the time.

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Maximum Aluminum: Optimizing Metal Removal Rate in Aluminum with a High Speed Spindle

Speed changes the rules. To maximize metal removal rate with a high speed spindle, follow some fundamental tooling considerations and mill at just the right rpm.

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High Speed Machining And You

This month's cover story illustrates something fundamental about high speed machining. The article presents a recipe related to speeds and depths of cut, but it doesn't list what those parameters should be.

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What The Control Can Do

Mold and die makers know better than other sorts of shops that a machine tool's performance is determined by the electronics as much as by the iron.

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Come Together

Machine tool companies are buying one another. Machine tool companies are partnering with one another.

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Fast Gaging For Fuel Efficiency

Tighter standards for automobile emission control and fuel economy translate directly to tighter tolerances for automotive fuel systems. Precision machining alone may not be enough to meet these tolerances because the precision of the complete assembly is what's key.

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A Surplus Of Rationalization

Remember when "envy" used to be a bad thing? This goes way back. but it may surprise you to learn that envy was once taken so seriously, it was listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

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CAD/CAM

Plunge Roughing Right Now

This mold shop makes plunge roughing work using the kind of machine and the kind of tooling it’s been using all along. In other words, this shop achieved a faster metal removal rate just by changing direction.

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Die/Mold

Where Dry Milling Makes Sense

Liquid coolant offers advantages unrelated to temperature. Forced air is the fluid of choice in this shop...but even so, conventional coolant can't be eliminated entirely.

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