Founded in 1973,
Guhring UK — the Birmingham-based subsidiary of the Guhring Group — manufactures precision cutting tools; and while the company began as a stockholder of ‘the more standardised cutting and milling tools, today the company manufactures bespoke cutting and milling tools for some of the world’s largest companies — including BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Airbus, and BAE Systems.
A particular expertise of Guhring is manufacturing carbide and poly-crystalline diamond (PCD) cutting tools. The company’s range of PCD tools, which are made-to-order to suit customer requirements, are manufactured by brazing ultra-high-hardness industrial-grade diamond cutting tips onto bespoke and hardened tool-steel bodies; and depending on the size and complexity of the component, special tooling would historically take up to eight weeks to design, test, and manufacture in-house. However, smaller manufacturers with less volume cannot generally justify the costs or lead time for special tools.
Alan Pearce, Guhring UK’s PCD production supervisor, said: “When we began considering supplying smaller-volume customers we look at additive manufacturing as a means of opening new revenue streams, reducing lead times and bringing down prototype costs and iterative cycle times.”
Guhring teamed up with local
Markforged partner
Mark3D UK to find the best 3-D printer for their needs, and decided upon a Markforged Metal X system, as well as a Markforged continuous fibre 3-D printer for producing customer samples and low-volume special tool prototypes. Guhring soon turned to metal 3-D printing to produce functional tooling.
Mr Pearce continued: “The first 3-D printed tool we made was a basic milling cutter using H13 tool steel. Within one day, we had designed and printed a tool in Onyx — a nylon mixed with chopped carbon fibre — and could immediately see if we were going to come up against any problems in manufacturing it. Within five days, we had printed and sintered a fully functional metal cutter body.
“After adding the cutting tips, we qualified the mill by initially testing it as an aluminum reamer; and having found that it performed extremely well, we changed the configuration of the tool-tip geometry and ran the 3-D printed tool as a milling cutter. This too worked exactly as planned. The 3-D printed tool is 60% lighter than its traditional predecessor, which allows for faster in-cycle tool changes and a reduction in cycle times. This technology is allowing us to produce more versatile, lightweight tools at a far lower price.”