Quick-Change Tooling Maximizes Turning Center Potential for Job Shop

Anthony Machine Inc. (San Antonio, TX) serves the oil and gas, mining, transportation, power generation and other industries. With all of this precision machining experience, there’s little this job shop can’t handle. But after they purchased a pair of NLX 3000 1250 universal turning centers from DMG MORI USA Inc. (Chicago, IL) – their first Y-axis, live-tool lathes – they were challenged to reduce setup times and maximize the potential of these machines, so they equipped them with fast, flexible and accurate Turret Adapted Clamping Units (TACU) and KM™ quick-change toolholders from Kennametal Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA). “Over the years, we’ve built a number of KM-equipped custom toolholders for deep boring and other machining operations on our CNC lathes and machining centers, and we use Kennametal on several of the shop’s manual turret lathes to overcome limitations with available tool positions,” explained Daniel Goller, a manufacturing technologist at Anthony Machine. “On more than one occasion, we’ve earned new business because KM was able to achieve tolerances and surface finishes that others couldn’t do with conventional tooling.”

“The differences are striking,” added Mohsen Saleh, the operations manager at Anthony Machine. “Compared to the traditional wedge and screw-style blocks that come standard on most machines, KM-equipped TACU units are both faster and more accurate. We routinely hold tolerances of 0.0005 in (0.013 mm) and I’m told that part size doesn’t change from one clamping to the next. The turret is less crowded, everything is easier to get at and you don’t have the chatter and deflection that you often find with typical straight shank tools and set-screw type boring bar holders.”

Anthony Machine Inc., 1235 West Laurel, San Antonio, TX 78201, 210-734-5121, www.anthonymachine.com.

Kennametal Inc., 600 Grant Street, Suite 5100, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, 724-539-8033, www.kennametal.com.