PM Blog

Effective, efficient production of deep holes can present a number of challenges. To produce a quality final product while keeping costs under control, shops must be able to achieve accuracy, repeatability and sufficient surface finish while maintaining predictable tool life. Choosing the best tool for the job and implementing the right operating procedures can help make this difficult operation productive and profitable.

At a recent event at Big Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc., Cory Cetkovic, Sphinx product manager, presented his tips for making the most of deep hole drilling operations. This article breaks down his key points.

Production Machining sales staff attended the dealer portion of the Muratec 2019 Technology Showcase held at Murata Machinery Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 18. This exclusive media tour included a walk through the facility, which allows for 70 machines under power and houses 112 employees who support North America sales and service. 

Demo machines on display at the event:

David started at Global Precision Industries (GPI) in 2015 as an entry level

CNC machine operator. He knew little about manufacturing, but showed up for work every day with a positive attitude and an eagerness to learn. “Dave exemplifies what every machine shop is looking for in an employee today, someone who is willing to do whatever necessary to make the company and his coworkers successful,” his nominator says.

The Precision Machining Index fell modestly from the prior month, registering 46.5 for August. Readings above 50 indicate expanding activity and values below 50 indicate contracting activity. The further away a reading is from 50 the greater the size of the change in activity. Gardner Intelligence’s review of the underlying components of the Index found that both exports and total new orders registered higher readings during the month despite both measures posting readings below 50. This indicates that both foreign and domestic new orders contracted in August, but at a lesser rate than in July. Should these readings continue to close in on the 50 mark in the coming months, it will indicate a stabilization in the demand for production machined goods. For the month, production activity registered as “unchanged,” while supplier deliveries posted another month of slowing activity growth. Conversely, employment moved 10 points lower from the prior month, registering its lowest reading since the first half of 2016.

Weakness in both domestic and foreign demand resulted in many Production Machining survey participants relying on their backlogs to keep their shops active. This caused reported backlog activity to contract at its fastest rate in almost three years. August marked the third consecutive month of contracting backlogs.

It’s rare that a technology or process first developed in the 19th century experiences breakthroughs in the 21st. But what Swiss turning has experienced during the last couple of years, specifically relating to the all-important and time-consuming setup, may qualify. But why is a Big Kaiser engineer discussing Swiss turning? It’s true that we’ve built our name on tooling for work commonly done with milling machines, but we also need to have deep lathe expertise in our ranks because we rely heavily on them to prototype and produce our tools and holders.

On many occasions we’ve had to develop our own solutions to tricky problems, and some of these have been so impactful it made sense to take them to market. We consider two of these solutions as breakthroughs as they offer new advances in tooling and setup that can dramatically enhance production on these specialized machines.