Singing off the same songsheet

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Mike Richardson hears from Maka Machinery UK’s managing director, Iain Young and Hufschmied’s business development manager, Heiko Simonis to discover how the two companies have struck a mutual partnership to optimise cutting tool performance. 

Mike Richardson hears from Maka Machinery UK’s managing director, Iain Young and Hufschmied’s business development manager, Heiko Simonis to discover how the two companies have struck a mutual partnership to optimise cutting tool performance.

When Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder duetted on the hit single ‘Ebony and Ivory’, their voices truly worked in perfect harmony with one another. The same can be said of technology partners Maka and Hufschmied, and their efforts to make the machining of composite components sound just as harmonious.

Maka Systems first developed CNC machines for the wood, aluminium and plastics industries, and according to the head of its UK division, Iain Young, its expansion into composite machining was an inevitable evolution for the Bavarian-based machine builder.

Moving into composite machining mainly through the GRP route, Maka Systems developed its earliest CNC machines for trimming and machining composite materials from its existing CNC routers over 30 years ago. Their design and construction were particularly suitable for automotive components, and more latterly applied in aerospace manufacturing where it has quickly begun to make inroads into the market.

The company has continued to focus on R&D to keep pace with the ever-changing material advances. Young states that the need for high-speed machining with composite materials has become a very topical subject, particularly with the lightweighting demands of the automotive sector.

“The automotive industry is increasingly demanding lower manufacturing costs in tandem with ever-improving quality,” he begins. “Therefore, we decided to form a mutual research and development partnership with Hufschmied to make some big improvements in 5-axis CNC machining and cutting tool technology through our collaborative research.

“In looking to develop new manufacturing systems, the developments made by the Maka and Hufschmied teams in high-speed machining can now realise those long sought-after benefits for both composite and aluminium machining. This in turn reduces manufacturing costs by improving CNC machining operations, improving the customers’ processes and reducing operating costs.”

Young says that Maka brings to the table its bespoke CNC solutions to produce machining centres that are optimised for manufacturing processes that focus on reducing manufacturing cost.

“We understand manufacturing operations and how the machining centres need to be optimised, how the parts or materials need to be loaded and unloaded correctly and the cutting tool technology. We’ve worked closely with Diehl Aerospace for the production of its aircraft interiors and the company has recently ordered another Maka CNC 5-axis machining centre, making it six in total that they have purchased from us.”

Staying one cut ahead

However, a vital part of ensuring a CNC machine tool sings as sweetly as a song thrush rather than chattering like a woodpecker is through the application of the correct cutting tools. Maka’s cutting tool partner, Hufschmied Zerspanungssysteme has more than 25 years of experience in development and manufacture of process optimised tools.

Hufschmied says its know-how has the result of a great number of successfully mastered machining tasks. With the goal of achieving the shortest possible process costs and minimum post-processing times, business development manager, Heiko Simonis says his company specialises in providing high speed tooling for cutting lightweight materials, including GRP and CFRP.

“We have the largest standard range of tools for composites in Europe,” he states. “Working in cooperation with Maka, we realise our customers need precise machining centres and part fixturing and clamping methods. Without this combination, the tool will quickly become worn. We now develop tools that can travel over 1,000 metres and enjoy extremely long lifetimes as well. We use our own production CNC machining centres for testing and proving-out tools, which means that not only do we produce tooling products, but we ensure that they are optimised for use on the CNC machining centres too.”

Hufschmied’s T-REX tools have been developed for chipping CFRP and GFRP structured components and satisfying the specialised requirements of the automotive industry. With its variable cutting tool geometry, T-REX is said to combine the advantages of router geometry with the delamination-free trimming quality of a compression tool, resulting in high abrasion resistance for long tool life.

“Our T-REX drilling/milling combination cutting tools offer compression cutting through the amalgamation of roughing and finishing. The cutting tool’s finishing edge pushes the material upwards, whilst the roughing edge pushes the material downwards. Through this method of compression cutting, the tool does not create any delamination or fibre break-out of the component.

“In addition to our T-REX products, we also have our Blockbuster fibre drill geometry. Combining them means that whenever our customers are processing extremely large carbon fibre parts that require several different diameters of machined hole in the part, they can now manufacture the complete part without any repetitive tool changes. Our Blockbuster tool has four edges on the bull-nose, which helps to compress the material and avoid fibre break-out. Last year we won an innovation award from BMW for our work on the new 7 Series car CFRP part.”

Finding the sweet spot

Young reckons that to really make Hufschmied’s cutting tools work correctly, they need precision, stability and minimal vibration from the machine tool spindle that houses them. This is where Maka comes in - as a specialist in developing the right types of CNC machining centres for machining composite materials that can deploy these cutting tools in the most effective way.

“Our customers can now achieve the feeds, speeds and tool life they’ve been crying out for. Combined with the accuracy and rigidity of our machining centre spindle, Hufschmied’s compression cutters provide very high precision, run-out, reduced chatter and zero vibration. Why do we need to improve precision and minimise vibration? The high-speed production trimming of CFRP parts using a typical machine tool spindle may seem fairly straightforward, but the turning circle of rotating its spindle head can introduce some inaccuracies when tilting and positioning.

“The construction of Maka’s machine spindles places the cutting tool much closer to the turning centre of the spindle where the vibration is relatively modest and can therefore be accommodated more precisely,” he concludes. “We have developed our Power-Maka spindle, which is a similar size to a traditional one, but offers much lower vibration and tight tolerances enabling the cutters to really perform and get the cost benefits.”

Working side by side with their customers, Maka and Hufschmied have learnt to live and give together a perfectly harmonious machining process through a combination of experience, innovation, expertise and service that provides a successful end product.

www.maka.com

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