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 [...]
Keep Cool: 5 Things You Should Know About High-Pressure Coolant Systems If you’ve purchased a new end mill or slotting cutter lately, chances are good that it’s riddled with coolant holes. There’s an excellent reason for this. Unless you’re machining gray cast iron, high-carbon or hardened steels, or using ceramic cutting tools—cutting dry, in other words—you’ll [...]
Five Tips for Keeping Cutting Fluids in Tip-Top Shape Nobody likes a stinky machine tool. When cutting fluids are poorly maintained, anaerobic bacteria blossoms, feeding on the way lube and other unavoidable contaminants that collect within any machine sump. This is why Kent CNC’s KVR-series vertical machining centers are equipped with automatic coolant tank skimmers and [...]
3 Chip Management Tips for CNC Machine Operators There’s one basic rule of shop floor economics that everyone should know: if the machines aren’t making chips, the business is losing money. But the shape of those chips and their removal from the work area is every bit as important as producing them in the first place. [...]
