A Productive Journey Wisconsin job shop expands its small part capabilities with a new CNC machining center from Kent USA Every shop faces the same situation at one point or another. The machine tools are either too large and slow to be competitive on smaller parts, or too small and underpowered for the larger ones. [...]
Twin Turrets: Making Oilfield Lathes Twice as Productive Twin turret. Dual turret Double turret. Whatever you call them, there’s no arguing that they increase productivity compared to traditional single turret CNC lathes. That's true no matter what you’re making, but especially so with very large or very long parts, like those produced by oil and gas [...]
Big Bore Lathes: Three Reasons Why You Should Move to CNC Not so long ago, I offered a few reasons to supersize your underpowered or undersized big bore lathe. I also suggested some things to look for when doing so. I'm going to make a similar argument, except this time I'm talking to those of you [...]
Traveling Column Machines: Three Ways Additional Travel Improves Productivity I’ve always been intrigued by traveling column machines. That's because a vertical machining center able to mill both ends of a sleeper sofa or carry parts that weigh more than the recently-resurrected Ford Ranger (there’s a yellow 2003 in my driveway) raises a lot of possibilities. This [...]
Four Things Job Shops Should Know When Searching for the Best Vertical Machining Center VMCs are the workhorses of any job shop. They’re able to machine a huge variety of parts. The tooling is widely available, as are machine operators. VMCs are also less expensive than a comparably-sized horizontal or five-axis machining center. Finding the best [...]
Quick-Change Tooling: Four Off-the-Shelf Solutions to Cut Downtime on CNC Machine Tools Spending a few hours or even an entire shift setting up a CNC machine tool was once considered no big deal. Not anymore. With job quantities dropping and shops under increased pressure to reduce costs, setup time is critical. Of all the continuous improvement [...]
High-Speed Machining: Four Ways to Increase Productivity and Cut Costs Hogging with a high-speed steel corncob cutter was once considered the best way to remove lots of material quickly. No longer. The techniques that work well on a manual knee mill have no place on CNC machining centers. Instead, machinists should apply lighter radial depths of [...]
Machining Center Selection: Three Things to Know Let's face it: if you're shopping for a CNC machining center, there are a number of good choices out there. And just like picking out your next car or a vacation home, there’s a lot to consider before buying one. Kent CNC recognizes this. We encourage our customers to [...]
Feeding’s Faster: Three Reasons to Avoid Slugging In the previous blog post, I offered four good reasons to save yourself some hard-earned cash and skip the bar feeder on your next lathe purchase. These include floor space, material waste, spindle speed limitations, bar preparation, and the not-insignificant cost of the bar feeder (I guess that’s five [...]
Slugging it Out: Four Arguments Against Bar Feeders Let’s pretend you just ordered a KLR-series 2-axis horizontal turning center from Kent CNC. Congratulations, but how are you going to keep it fed? One of the biggest decisions anyone can make upon ordering a new CNC lathe—whether it’s ours or someone else’s—is what kind of bar [...]
