FEATURES

Multitasking With Brand Loyalty

SureFire LLC (Fountain Valley, California) has found one name in machine tools it can trust, and therefore, has invested in several different types of machines with at least one thing in common—the name "Index" in large letters written on the machines’ bodies.

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PMPA Technical Member Profile: Fischer Special Tooling Corp.

When the Howard H. Fischer Company was founded in 1957, carbide tooling was still relatively unknown. The Mentor, Ohio-based tool and die shop focused on the unique tooling material and soon made its mark as a specialist in custom carbide tooling.

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Measurement

Reduce Nonconformances With Automated Inspection

Are you tired of receiving phone calls from your customers requiring you to have a third-party sort? Perhaps you’re finally tired of having to deal with thousands of parts returned to you for sorting because of one or two nonconforming parts that made it through your system. You’ve made up your mind to eliminate this nonsense once and for all—but how?

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Machines

Rotary Transfer Machines For Extruded Bar

To address the requirements of extruded bar applications, Italian builder Picchi, which is distributed in the United States through RBR Associates (Darien, Illinois), has developed a line of rotary transfer machines designed to handle round, hex, square, rectangular, elliptical and even complicated extruded shapes.

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Trends In Copper And Brass

Copper is selling for $3.70 per pound at the time that I am writing this in mid-September. Thefts of copper materials from homes, businesses and utilities are lead stories and front-page news on television and in the newspapers—even in the Wall Street Journal.

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Workholding

Workholding For Swiss Turning

In large part, because of the machine’s versatility, Swiss turning is increasing its penetration of the precision turned parts market. As more shops look to this technology, a look at workholding considerations is in order.

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Automation & Robots

Simplifying Machine Load/Unload Automation

Today, lower part volumes and frequent change-over are changing the offerings of some automation integrators. Standard, off-the-shelf components are being engineered to work together in a large variety of applications and, in some cases, are even portable so they can be moved from machine tool to machine tool.

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