Based in Swansea and a leading provider of tooling solutions to customers in the automotive, aerospace, medical, bearings and general engineering industries, Eurogrind recently installed a new grinding machine that can switch quickly between carbide and PCD tool production using grinding wheels and rotary erosion electrodes, allowing the company to automate the production of its rotary tooling.
The machine — a Power Diamond from Kenilworth-based Walter Ewag UK Ltd (
www.walter-machines.com) — is being used in conjunction with a Walter Helicheck Basic 3 tool-measuring machine, thereby allowing Eurogrind to ensure that in-house quality levels are adhered to, while supplying customers with definitive inspection data for every tool.
General manager Stefan Sumner says: “Automated tool production to defined and authoritative quality levels is an indispensable advantage in today’s business environment.
“The two technologies combined will only further enhance our effectiveness and levels of efficiency in meeting increasing demand, especially with ‘blue chip’ customers. Indeed, the impact has already been such that one major customer has decided to switch all of its tooling requirements to us.”
Formed in 1982 and now with 20 employees at its Swansea site, Eurogrind has an established reputation 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. The company’s manufacture of its own tools has been successfully complemented by the supply of standard tools from the likes of Iscar and Sumitomo, and the availability of a ‘one-stop’ service based on VMI (Vendor Machine Inventory) for the supply of both special and standard tooling, including PCD, CBN and solid-carbide types. These vending machines automatically send live and detailed e-mail reports to Eurogrind, requesting product replenishment; tooling is often supplied on a next-day delivery basis.
“The vending machines’ Isis software gives users full traceability of tooling and usage rates, thereby helping them gain substantial reductions in tooling consumption,” adds Mr Sumner.
Streamlined production
A consultant was brought in to look at ways of streamlining Eurogrind’s manufacturing capabilities, 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 accuracy and efficiency when producing close-tolerance steel and carbide tools, as well as to meet the burgeoning demand being placed on Eurogrind for PCD routers and counter-sinks for machining aerospace composites.
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 the levels of flexibility and cost-effectiveness it sought.
Eurogrind’s engineering design manager, Nigel Thomas, said: “Everything we do is geared towards reducing customers’ cycle times and costs. We therefore work closely with our customers, forging partnerships with their buying teams and engineering departments, and we work jointly on developing ‘cost down’ tooling solutions.”
He says the Power Diamond’s Tool Studio software is a powerful ally in the development process: “This easy-to-use software allows us to quickly and easily create tool-machining sequences by harnessing Wizard functionality to add all appropriate machining parameters, then use 3-D simulation to check and, if necessary, optimise grinding operations. Furthermore, Tool Studio seamlessly integrates the machines’ robot load/unload facility.”
Mr Thomas also says that Walter’s recently announced Diamond Plus package is another valuable asset. New software — combined with a new and advanced generator interface card in the machine generator, as well as a new design of electrode to increase flexibility — allows users to reduce production times and improve cutting-edge quality (edge chipping down to just 5µm at 10µm grain size). The package also shortens the time required to program complex PCD forms.
The user-friendliness of this software has also been enhanced, and several features contribute to minimising programming times. These include a new routine for the automatic generation of electrode dressing, the input of default values, touch-screen navigation and a variety of short-cut buttons.
Eurogrind has complemented the Helitronic Power Diamond machining technology with a Walter Helicheck Basic 3 tool-measuring machine. This four-axis CNC unit, which is for the inspection of tools up to 320mm in diameter and 420mm long, features back, front and face cameras and offers a repeatability of 1.5µm on length and diameter measurements; the resolution is 0.25µm.