Günther Wirth (GW) is a manufacturer of PCD and solid-carbide cutting tools, as well as special tools.
It has more than 100 machine tools, many from the ‘sharpening specialist’ Vollmer (
www.vollmer-group.com).
These include QWD wire erosion machines and Vgrind 160 grinding machines. Founded in 1981, GW has a factory in Balzheim, Germany, a production site in France and a branch in India.
The business, which has been majority-owned by the Ceratizit Group since 2012, currently has around 450 employees and produces some 12,000 tools every day for international customers in a variety of industries.
Gerhard Bailom, GW’s CEO, said: “We have been manufacturing cutting tools from solid-carbide and PCD for over 35 years, and we now have around 20,000 different standard tools. We are able to achieve high volumes thanks to our ‘state of the art’ machines.”
Since 1999, GW has been using Vollmer’s QWD ‘eroding’ machines to manufacture PCD tools. These use a contactless eroding process that allows PCD to be removed precisely and tool geometries to be individually adapted to customer requirements.
The eroding wire also allows GW to achieve precise and complex tool geometries with minimal inside radii.
The tool manufacturer recently installed one of Vollmer’s new Vgrind 160 machines.
This is used for the development and production of special solid-carbide tools; and being equipped with automation, it accommodates round-the-clock production. The magazine can hold up to 272 workpieces.