‘Two-in-one’ tool manufacturing cuts a powerful path for Eurogrind

The installation of a new Walter Helitronic Power Diamond machine for the ‘two-in-one' production of carbide and PCD tooling is transforming the fortunes of Eurogrind while also generating accurate, cost-effective tooling solutions for its customers.
Supplied by Walter Ewag UK, the new machine can switch quickly between carbide and PCD tool production using grinding wheels and rotary erosion electrodes, and it has enabled the South Wales tooling supplier to automate the production of its rotary carbide and PCD tooling. By complementing the Power Diamond with a Walter Helicheck Basic 3 tool measuring machine, Eurogrind can now also ensure in-house quality levels as well as supply customers with definitive inspection data for every tool. “The combination of automated tool production to defined and authoritative quality levels is an indispensable advantage in today's business environment,” says Eurogrind's general manager Stefan Sumner. “The two technologies combined will only further enhance our effectiveness and levels of efficiency in meeting increasing business levels, especially with blue chip customers. Indeed, the impact has been such that already one major customer has decided to switch all of its tooling requirements to us!” With 20 employees at its Swansea site, Eurogrind has an established reputation (since 1982) for producing HSS and carbide tooling, specialising in bespoke solutions and special form inserts in mostly small batches and repeat orders of usually 50-100-off. These have successfully been complemented by the supply of standard tools (including Iscar and Sumitomo) and a very successful ‘one-stop' service based on VMI (Vendor Machine Inventory) in the supply of both special and standard tooling, including PCD, CBN and solid carbide types. This includes the vending machine automatically sending live and detailed email reports to Eurogrind, requesting product replenishment quantities of its supplies, often on an overnight delivery basis. “The vending machine Isis software provides users with full traceability of tooling and usage rates, therefore helping them gain substantial cost-down reductions in tooling consumption,” adds Sumner. A consultant was brought in to look at ways of streamlining manufacturing, including the re-tipping and re-lapping of PCD tools – cost-effective routines that counter the typically shorter tool life experienced when machining aerospace materials. He recommended the Helitronic Power Diamond machine to improve the accuracy and efficiency of production of close-tolerance steel and carbide tools as well as to meet the burgeoning demand being placed on Eurogrind for PCD routers and countersinks, for example, for aerospace composites machining. With automatic wheel dressing and auto-load/robot options allowing overnight, unmanned running, the top-of-the-range tool production centre would, he suggested, give the company an unrivalled level of flexibility and cost-effectiveness. “Everything we do is geared towards reducing customers' cycle times and costs,” says Eurogrind's engineering design manager, Nigel Thomas. “We therefore work closely with our customers, forging partnerships with their buying teams and engineering departments, and we jointly emphasise the development of developing cost-down tooling solutions.” This, he says, is where the Power Diamond's Tool Studio software is a powerful ally: “This easy-to-use software allows us to quickly and easily create tool machining and movement sequences by, for example, harnessing Wizard functionality to add all appropriate machining parameters then to utilise 3D-simulation to check and, if necessary, optimise grinding operations. Importantly, Tool Studio seamlessly integrates the machines' robot load/unload facility.” In addition, says Thomas, Walter's recently announced Diamond Plus package is another valuable ally. Centred on innovative software, a new and advanced GIF (generator interface) card in the machine generator, as well as a new design electrode to increase flexibility, Diamond Plus enables users of Power Diamond machines to, for example, reduce production times and to improve cutting edge quality (edge chipping down to just five microns at 10 micron grain size), as well as to simplify and speed up the programming of complex PCD forms. It must also be noted that operator efficiency on the Helitronic Power Diamond is further improved with the complementary revised WWM P52 PCD profile tools/user interface software suite. The user-friendliness of this software has been enhanced and savings on programming times are generated by, for example, a new routine for the automatic generation of electrode dressing, the input of default values, touch screen navigation and a variety of shortcut buttons. The powerful yet very flexible Helitronic Power Diamond machining technology is complemented at Eurogrind by the Walter Helicheck Basic 3 tool measuring machine, a four-axis CNC unit for the inspection of tools up to 320mm diameter and 420mm long. With back, front and face cameras, the Basic 3 boasts a repeatability of 1.5 microns on tool length and diameter measurements, and a measurement value resolution of 0.25 micron. “Experience counts is our motto at Eurogrind,” adds Thomas, “and with this up-to-date Walter tool production technology on board, it is clear that by marrying engineering expertise with technology advances everyone in the tool manufacturing chain will benefit.” www.walter-machines.com