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November 2013 • www.canadianmetalworking.com

Serving the Canadian Metalworking Industry Since 1905

Fab on Fire Robotics, Case Studies, FABTECH Preview

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A LOOK INSIDE Vol. 108 | No. 9 | November 2013 | www.canadianmetalworking.com

TRANSPORTATION REPORT 2013: Policy and infrastructure changes ahead .................................. 20 FEATURES FABTECH PREVIEW 2013 ..................................26

WHAT DOES “SIGMA” REALLY MEAN?.............60

What’s new in the Windy City

Standard deviation without math anxiety

WHERE ARE YOUR ROBOTS? ...........................32 Make ready for the shop robot invasion

CASE STUDY: LOPES LTD., CONISTON, ONTARIO........................................................... 38

A NEW WAY TO DRILL .......................................64 Sineholing is vibration assist with a twist

HIGH-TECH HOLEMAKING ............................... 68

A family business that builds and installs

A process undergoing a revolution

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE.............................42

THREAD MILLING GROWS ................................74

Trumpf adds water to the laser cutting formula

Banishing broken taps

NDT TESTING SHORTAGES LOOM ....................50 More entry-level personnel needed

SUPER COLD? NO PROBLEM .......................... 90

CASE STUDY: XTREME STEEL & PROFILES, GEORGETOWN, ONTARIO .................................56

THREE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR MARK ..............94

Heavy plate and specialty steel grades for tough jobs

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A new steel grade for cryogenic applications

Which is best for metal parts?

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DEPARTMENTS View From the Floor ............................................................ 6 News ................................................................................... 8 Floor Space ....................................................................... 17 The Business of Welding ................................................... 19 Welding News.................................................................... 36

The Cutting Edge .............................................................. 46 Tool Talk ............................................................................. 82 The Business of Tooling .................................................... 78

By The Numbers................................................................ 98

Cover design by Cathy Li

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PUBLISHER Steve Devonport 416-442-5125 | SDevonport@canadianmetalworking.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Rob Swan 416-510-5225, cell 416-725-0145 | RSwan@canadianmetalworking.com EDITOR Jim Anderton 416-510-5148 | janderton@canadianmetalworking.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Nicholas Healey 416-442-5600 x 3642 | nhealey@canadianmetalworking.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lisa Wichmann 416-442-5600 x 5101 | LWichmann@canadianmanufacturing.com ART DIRECTOR Sheila Wilson 416-442-5600 x 3593 | shwilson@bizinfogroup.ca CIRCULATION MANAGER Selina Rahaman 416-442-5600 x 3528 | SRahaman@bizinfogroup.ca MARKET PRODUCTION MANAGER Barb Vowles 416-510-5103 | vowlesb@bizinfogroup.ca PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER Phyllis Wright 416-442-6786 | Pwright@bizinfogroup.ca BIG MAGAZINES LP ............................................................................

PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS INFORMATION GROUP | Bruce Creighton VICE-PRESIDENT OF CANADIAN PUBLISHING | Alex Papanou EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER, MANUFACTURING | Tim Dimopoulos HOW TO REACH US ............................................................................

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View From the Floor The religion of Six Sigma

R

eligion has been a fundamental method of social and cultural organization ever since early hominids painted the walls of caves, but regardless of your opinion on Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, it’s a major influence on most of the world’s population. Entire nations self-identify through faith and while there will always be a debate about “us-versus-them” among major religions, it’s interesting to think that manufacturing doesn’t actually have its own sect. In the last 200 years, manufacturing has had at least as large an impact as religion on cultural and moral values and probably much more.

The birth control pill and communications satellites come to mind immediately, but oddly there’s no religion based on the worship of technology. Instead, there’s an evangelical movement within the manufacturing community, whose religion is “Quality” and whose sects have titles like “Six Sigma”, “Lean” and “Zero Defects”.

Like God-based belief systems, these notions have evolved far from their original mathematical roots which were eventually expressed as statistical quality and process control. That’s amazing, considering that statistical methods have only been around part-making industries in a real sense for a little more than 70 years.

Christianity and Islam took centuries to go global, but visit any manufacturing plant on the planet and you’ll find a manager who’s aware of Six Sigma or Zero Defects.

It really took off in the 1980’s, when hero CEOs like GE’s Jack Welch wrote books about management and preached the gospel of quality like the Sermon on the Mount.

And like real religion, that message has been distorted, usurped and appropriated to come to mean everything from a measure of variance from a statistical mean to a way to keep your management team motivated. Most of it, in my opinion, is useless.

The part that isn’t is the true core of statistical quality control and the tools we use to measure important attributes. There’s nothing “Lean” about standard deviation, but the amazing power of that bell curve to show us everything from the wear on a die to the assembler’s hangover is a real-world miracle that’s so buried in mathematics that we forget what it gave humanity. Pre-statistical quality control products were, in a word, crap. Museums preserve the best of each age, but take a good look at an actual Model T Ford from the 1920’s and you’ll see an automobile that looks like it was assembled by drug addicts. It’s not that workers or engineers cared less; they simply didn’t understand what their micrometers and “go-no go” gauges were really telling them. The breakthrough didn’t come from the high priests of industry like Henry Ford, it came from lay preachers like Shewart, Juran and Deming. William Edwards Deming in particular was ignored in his homeland and eventually banished to the manufacturing wilderness of Japan where he founded a true, science-based quality movement that eventually swept across the globe. Sound familiar? Deming’s “You Can’t Inspect Quality Into A Part”, is the mass-production equivalent to “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. While these men weren’t apostles in our sense of the word, in my opinion they put something more important into human culture than words on parchment. Ask anyone who wears a pacemaker.

JIM ANDERTON, EDITOR

Do you agree? Let me know, and feel free to drop me a line at the e-mail address below, or buttonhole me at a show or event. I’d love to hear from you! janderton@canadianmetalworking.com 6 | NOVEMBER 2013 | www.canadianmetalworking.com

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IN THE NEWS

Former Ontario trade minister delivers keynote at CMTS 2013 “I would do cartwheels if I saw our prime minister selling Bombardier.”

By Nick Healey, Associate Editor

Ontario’s former Minister for Economic Development and Trade, Sandra Pupatello, delivered the keynote address.

TORONTO — The Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show, or CMTS, was held on September 30, at the International Centre near Toronto’s Pearson Airport.

The biennial show started by Ontario’s former Minister for Economic Development and Trade, Sandra Pupatello, delivering the keynote address to an audience of manufacturing professionals.

Pupatello, formerly a cabinet minister with the Ontario Liberal party, now serves as both the CEO of the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation, and Director of Business Development and Global Markets at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“It’s striking to see how strong we are, and how this really is our bread and butter,” Pupatello said of the country’s manufacturing sector.

As a native of the Windsor area, which has long been an auto parts powerhouse, Pupatello is no stranger to the importance of manufacturing. The crux of her keynote was that the industry in this country is stronger than we all think – but still in need of attention.

And in particular, she highlighted the dire need for R&D spending.

“Relative to the Americans we still have lot more to do in terms of investment, but we’re getting better.

“R&D spending is an area that’s bedevilled us for some time… greater spending will have a direct impact on our productivity levels.”

Also, on the eve of the NHL season, Pupatello made the most

Canadian of references to describe how we need to view our industrial sector.

“The biggest multiplier effect of them all – essentially the Wayne Gretzky of the economy – that’s manufacturing … (it has) the biggest supply chain, and it has the biggest impact on the economy.

“The more stuff it takes to make it, the bigger the impact it has on the economy.”

She took the analogy even further by explaining that the same way star hockey players are protected by enforcers, our manufacturing sector needs protecting through solid public policy.

Pupatello also explained how manufacturing policy can’t be “one off” solutions to the problems of the day – like a skilled worker shortage, for example. Instead, a collective, balanced set of policies will be more effective at encouraging manufacturing for the long term.

She also derided what she believes is a Canadian bashfulness about our capabilities in the sector.

An example she used was when the former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, met with China’s Hu Jintao to put the spotlight on a major deal the Chinese made with France’s Airbus.

“I would do cartwheels if I saw our prime minister with one of those world leaders, selling Bombardier. And for whatever reason we’ve got this shyness ... and I think we need to get over it.” CM

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IN THE NEWS

Government sells additional shares of GM O

TTAWA – The Canada GEN Investment Corporation (Canada GEN) has sold 30,000,000 shares of common stock of General Motors Company (GM) to BofA Merrill Lynch and RBC Capital Markets in an unregistered block trade.

The sale, which was announced September 10 by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, is another step towards returning GM to private sector ownership.

“As we said from the start, our investment in GM was always meant to be temporary as we worked to maximize the return to Canadian taxpayers,” Flaherty said.

“We do not believe that any government should be a shareholder of a private corporation for an indefinite period of time.

The Government of Canada is committed to exiting from ownership of GM as quickly as feasible, while maximizing the return for Canadian taxpayers, as we demonstrated today.”

With the completion of this sale, Canada GEN holds 110,084,746 shares of GM common stock and 16,101,695 shares of GM Series A Preferred Stock. Further details about the share sale will be made available when Canada GEN reports its trade with U.S. and Canadian securities regulators in the next several days.

Canada’s auto sector is the largest industry within the Can-

adian manufacturing sector and a key driver of the economy, employing (directly or indirectly) more than 110,000 Canadians from automotive assembly and automotive parts production.

In 2009, the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario provided significant financial support to the auto sector to protect jobs and help secure its long-term health and presence in Canada.

It’s estimated that approximately 52,000 Canadian jobs were protected by the Government’s action to help secure the health and presence of Canada’s auto sector in the midst of a global recession.

Now, recovery has begun to take hold of the auto industry. According to recent data from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, the sales of passenger cars and light trucks in Canada hit a record high in August, jumping 6.5 per cent year-over-year.

A total of 159,004 new vehicles were sold last month, which surpasses the previous record of 158,394 units for the same month in 2007.

Canada GEN, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, holds Canada’s interest in GM.

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anadian manufacturing giant Linamar Corp. says it has completed the acquisitions of a German engine component maker.

According to Linamar, it closed the deal with German firms Muhr und Bender KG and Mubea Motorkomponenten GmbH to buy the latter’s camshaft manufacturing and distributing unit.

“The acquisition of the Mubea assembled camshaft business adds leading-edge lightweight and fuel efficient hydroformed and assembled camshaft technology to our existing technology portfolio on camshafts,” Linamar CEO Linda Hasenfratz said in an announcement of the deal.

“Additionally, their capabilities on hot forging production will provide a significant enhancement to our machining and assembly operations, globally.”

The deal includes three facilities in Hildburghausen, Thale and Thale-Warnstedt, Germany.

Together they employ 110 people and had close to $25-million in sales. Linamar expects sales to “nearly double” in the next four years.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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IN THE NEWS

Unifor inks new four-year deal with GM’s CAMI plant LONDON, Ont. – Unifor Local 88 members working at the General Motors assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario have voted 90 per cent in favour of a new four-year deal following a ratification meeting in London on September 15.

The new agreement includes a $3,000 signing bonus and annual lump sum payments of $2,000 in each of 2014, 2015, and 2016.

The agreement also protects current pension benefits for active workers and retirees and provides full-time, permanent jobs to hundreds of temporary workers by eliminating the Supplemental Workforce Employment program, among other gains.

“This was not an easy round of negotiations, but the committee managed to carve out some important victories, including breaking the company’s reliance on temporary work,” said Unifor’s national president Jerry Dias.

Unifor plant chairperson Mike Van Boekel said the contract makes important inroads in workplace health and safety, job security and skilled trades, including the creation of eight new apprenticeship opportunities at the plant.

“We’ve crafted an agreement that creates a much-needed sense of job and income security for our members and their families,” Van Boekel said.

“We’re going to redouble our efforts to improve pensions for all workers, and will continue to push aggressively for a defined benefit plan in future rounds of talks,” he continued.

Unifor represents approximately 2,700 production and skilled trades workers at the GM (also known as the CAMI) plant in Ingersoll.

GM had previously invested $250 million at CAMI to install flexible body shop equipment and tooling, converting the manufacturing facility to support future vehicle production.

Local 88 members assemble the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain vehicles. CM

Irving Shipbuilding wins new commercial projects in Halifax

HALIFAX, N.S. – Irving Shipbuilding confirmed two new commercial ship repair contracts for Halifax Shipyard today; contracts that will require up to approximately 140 hourly employees.

MV Oceanex Sanderling, a container/cargo ship owned by Oceanex Inc., is scheduled to arrive into Halifax Shipyard’s Nova Dock during the second week of October for a two-week project to perform routine maintenance and repairs. The project is projected to require approximately 90 employees.

Later in the fall, the MV Holiday Island is expected to arrive at Halifax Shipyard for two weeks of general repairs and routine maintenance. This project is expected to require approximately 50 employees.

“The excellent reputation of our skilled ship repair specialists at Halifax Shipyard has helped to secure these two contracts for the yard,” said Kevin McCoy, President, Irving Shipbuilding.

“These are exactly the type of contracts that will help to keep our skilled shipbuilders and trades people at work as we continue to prepare Halifax Shipyard to build the Royal Canadian Navy’s new combat vessels beginning in 2015.”

“We look forward to being in a position to confirm details regarding new contracts in the very near future.” www.JesseEngineering.com Irving Shipbuilding was selected in 2011 “Click on Pipe Benders” as Canada’s Combatant Shipbuilder under the 12” 3D! National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, and is in the early stages of a 30-year military shipbuilding program. CM

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IN THE NEWS

Bombardier’s CSeries completes first flight B

ombardier Aerospace celebrated the successful first flight of its CSeries aircraft on September 16 – a major milestone for the company.

The maiden flight marked the start of the aircraft’s flight test program, leading up to the first customer delivery. It was also the first flight for Pratt & Whitney’s new Geared Turbofan PurePower engine as part of an aircraft certification program.

The all-new family of aircraft has been specifically designed for the 100- to 149-seat market segment.

The historic flight of CSeries flight test vehicle one (FTV1) – a CS100 jetliner bearing Canadian registration markings C-FBCS – was conducted under the command of Captain Charles (Chuck) Ellis, Chief Flight Test Pilot, Bombardier Flight Test Center.

“The performance of the CSeries aircraft was very impressive.

We couldn’t have wished for a better maiden flight,” said Capt.

Ellis. “The aircraft handled exactly as expected. Overall, we had a very productive first flight and an excellent start to the flight test program.”

“This is a very proud day for Bombardier and a true validation of the CSeries aircraft’s design and development, and of our extensive ground test program,” said Rob Dewar, Vice President and General Manager, CSeries Program, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft.

“Five years in the making, the CSeries aircraft’s first flight is the culmination of an incredible amount of hard work and dedication from our employees, partners and suppliers around the world.

A total of five CS100 flight test vehicles, all of which are currently in various stages of assembly, will join the flight test program in the coming months. CM

14 | NOVEMBER 2013 | www.canadianmetalworking.com

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IN THE NEWS

U.S. workers could help plug skills gap in Canada: Conference Board Alberta is in particular need of workers to fill jobs in the oil and gas sector.

OTTAWA – A new study by The Conference Board of Canada suggests labour-starved companies should start looking to American workers to fill employment gaps.

Alberta, which faces the most severe skills shortage in Canada, launched a pilot project that brought nearly 1,000 skilled U.S. workers into the province.

The province has been at the forefront of a strategy to recruit U.S. workers – particularly for resource projects – but Saskatchewan and Manitoba are also facing labour shortages.

The study, published by the Conference Board’s Global Commerce Centre, looks at Alberta’s successful strategy to recruit US workers and lessons that may apply to other provinces and regions.

“With 50,000 unfilled vacancies and more than double that number expected within a decade, the labour and skills shortage has a direct impact on Alberta’s ability to develop its resource and energy sector,” said Laura Dawson, author of Skills in Motion: U.S. Workers May Hold the Key to Canada’s Skills Shortage.

“That is not just a regional problem, it affects our national economic prospects as well.”

... continues on page 17

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... continued from page 15

Many Alberta employers consider U.S. workers to be ideal candidates because they have comparable training and experience. They also understand the language and work culture, can enter Canada without a visa, and live nearby.

Nevertheless, there is no simple mechanism for Canada to bring in U.S. workers in skilled trades. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) does not allow mutual recognition between Canada and U.S. for regulated trades and professions.

The Alberta Occupation-Specific Pilot was launched in 2012, and has already allowed nearly 1,000 skilled U.S. workers to enter the province. Alberta’s Department of Apprenticeship and Industry Training has stepped in to provide its own evaluation of workers’ foreign credentials and experience.

The province has launched a recruitment campaign in the United States. Alberta employers are also targeting Canadian and American veterans of the armed forces.

The report was published by the Conference Board’s Global Commerce Centre. conferenceboard.ca

Ford adds dry machining capability to six plants Ford Motor Co. announced Wednesday that it has added its dry machining capability to six plants globally. They also plan to nearly double the number in the next few years.

Near-dry machining, also known as Minimum Quantity Lubrication (or MQL), is a process that lubricates cutting tools with a fine spray of oil exactly when and where it is needed. Conventional wet machining floods the part with metalworking fluids, requiring large amounts of fluid to cool and lubricate the tools used to make engines and transmissions.

For a typical production line, MQL can save more than 280,000 gallons (or about 1,090,000 litres) of water annually. The Cologne Engine Plant in Germany decreased water use per engine by 50 per cent from 2011 to 2012 by switching to the MQL process, Ford added.

MQL also cuts the amount of oil needed to machine an engine or transmission 80 per cent or more, to about 100 millilitres.

Plants that have switched to the MQL process include Changan Ford Engine Plant in China, Craiova Engine Plant in Romania, Cologne Engine Plant in Germany as well as Livonia Transmission Plant, Romeo Engine Plant and Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Michigan.

GM of Canada confirms production extension at Oshawa assembly OSHAWA, Ont. — General Motors of Canada issued a statement confirming scheduling actions for Oshawa Assembly.

To meet projected market demand for the Chevrolet Impala Limited and Chevrolet Equinox, the company is announcing the extension of production on the Consolidated Line at the Oshawa Assembly Plant.

As a result, the Consolidated Line is now anticipated to cease production in 2016. All scheduling adjustments are subject to market demand.

Since the launch of the new GM in 2009, GM has announced significant investments in Canadian manufacturing facilities totaling approximately $1 billion.

Headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario, General Motors of Canada Limited (GMCL) employs more than 9,000 people across the country. GMCL markets the full range of fuel-efficient Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles and related services through Canada’s largest automotive dealer network.

IN THE NEWS Floor Space What’s the single most important attribute a good machinist should have (i.e. talent, work ethic, consistency, even temperament, etc)?

“Willingness to work and learn. Most young people today do not want to work and most think they know everything.”

— Larry Stuyt, President, Ontario Laser Cutting, Tillsonburg, Ontario

“All the requirements you have mentioned, and also wanting to work, (and) taking pride in their quality, tolerances and finishes.”

— Peter Alden, co-owner, Wessex Precision Machining Ltd., Ayr, Ontario

“The most important attribute of a good machinist is their attitude towards their career. The best machinist is not always the best employee.”

— Adriano Oppio, vice-president, Classic Tool & Die, Oldcastle, Ontario

“Attitude. If the machinist or any employee for that matter has the right attitude, the sky is the limit. A good attitude rubs off on the others and the whole team benefits from it.

Usually, having a good attitude means having a great work ethic and no mood swings. It shows in your performance.

You can have the best machinist, but if his attitude is rubbing the rest of the team the wrong way, the whole company suffers. With the right attitude you are more apt to try new things, or processes. You welcome change.”

— Marco Gagnon, co-owner, Gagnon Ornamental Works, Grand Falls, New Brunswick

“On the qualities of a good machinist: even temperament, works will with teammates and is a good team player.”

— Steve Cotton, owner/president, Micro Precision Parts Manufacturing, Vancouver Island, BC

“All [the attributes you mentioned] are good but I feel they all share a common thread, and that is ‘work ethic’. You can be the most talented person in the world but if you do not have a good work ethic you will not be a good machinist. If you have a good work ethic, you will have a willingness to try new things and learn to be more consistent in your work.”

— David Glover, owner/CEO, Harbour Technologies, Windsor, Ontario

“I would say talent, and work ethic go hand-in-hand.”

— Chad Plath, shop manager, D-M Precision Products, Dunnville, Ontario

www.canadianmetalworking.com | NOVEMBER 2013 | 17

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THE BUSINESS OF WELDING

Time to get more social F

irst off, I need to say that this is somewhat of a “Social Media” piece – not so much about social media, rather there are a lot of social media references. The goal is to get you all thinking about how such services can help improve our industry. The CWB and CWA have taken some large leaps in this regard, which you will notice as you read along. If you are not a fan of social media maybe now is a good time to take a second look and explore it – Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter – all have solid followings with respect to welding.

EU AND AWW Looking to expand your market outside Canada? Well it would appear – once we have all the details – that the Federal government is just about to open a very large door for you in the form of the new free trade agreement with the EU. Canada is not the EU, and for those looking to do business there the road is going to be steep, maybe impassable, unless time is spent now with respect to planning for the future. For example – if “ISO 3834” is meaningless to you then you might be surprised to know it’s a key part of landing any manufacturing contract in the EU. The same goes for a whole range of ISO and regional codes and standards.

The point here is not to make you worried, rather it is to help you start thinking. In this regard you have a friend in the CWB Group. We’ve been servicing EU clients who export product to Canada for years – we know the requirements and we want to share that knowledge with you.

BIG THINGS ARE COMING, AND IT BEST TO BE PREPARED In the up-coming months we will be putting together information sessions to help Canadian welders, and the businesses that employ them, understand the ground rules in the EU. Again the goal here is pre-planning, getting you up to speed before the door swings wide open. It will be many years before this actually happens, but time goes by quickly, and some of the work required is best done (and funded) over a long period of time. It might also be a good time to look at investing in new training and equipment, based on current ads being run by the government it would appear they what to help with this kind of thing. Without overstating things: There’s a lot to learn and take advantage of. So, if you are not already following us on Facebook I would recommend now is a good time to start – it will be one of our primary channels of information about what coming, what is already available, and what’s in it for you.

stuff coming for next year: CWC14 in Vancouver, and a possible CWZ14 (CanWeld Zone 2014) in Alberta and Ontario. CWC14 will be a really Ian Campbell, Director of Marketing and New Product big deal as it will be jointly held Development, CWB with the IIW, with a focus on artic/ cold weather welding. Exciting stuff and just what we need to help Canada’s welders, suppliers and manufacturers showcase their talent and knowhow to the worldwide industry. Guess what – we already have people from the EU interested in attending…

SOMETHING FOR THE POLITICIANS By the time you read this, the CWB Group will have completed our biggest push into the “political jungle” that is Ottawa, more specifically Parliament Hill and the people who work there. The event attracted Ministers and their aids from all portfolios and parties who were hosted by the CWB and CWA at an evening dedicated solely to the importance of welding to the Canada economy. They even got a chance to take a crack at welding themselves thanks to a number of virtual welding simulators that had been kindly provided for the event.

WHERE’S WELDEN VONARC? Good question, why not find out for yourself on Instagram (you will need a iPhone or Android device for this one). He was introduced at the above-mentioned Ottawa event as a way to showcase just how much of our country is welded.

CWB Staff have been putting him through his paces and we hope the politicians will do the same. There’s also an opportunity here for you to get involved. Are you working on an interesting project Welden should visit? Let us know on Facebook and he might just show up. Take a minute, drop Welden a note on Facebook and do your part to help highlight what welding has help to build in Canada.

CHANGES TO W59 Just a quick note to let you know CSA has updated their W59 standard; the new versions should be available on our store shortly. We are also working at updating our course and module. Call our call center for more info or watch our web sites and Facebook for more info on the revised courses in your area.

As always – if there’s something the CWB or CWA can do to help improve welding let us know.

For now – Stay connected, tuned in and “Social”.

CWC13 – ALL THAT WAS AND MORE Thanks to all who made it out to the first ever “new-look” CanWeld Conference. By all measures it was our biggest event ever, with more speakers covering a wider range of topics. Watch the CWA events website (www.cwaevents. org) for a recap of the conference and then follow us on Facebook and twitter to stay connected. There’s more new

Canadian Welding Bureau/Canadian Welding Association www.canadianmetalworking.com | NOVEMBER 2013 | 19

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POLICY AND INFRASTRUCTURE CHANGES AHEAD

Public-private partnerships point the way forward for the transportation sector

By Jim Anderton, Editor ...........................................................................................................................................................................

P

ierre Berton wasn’t an economist, but in telling the early history of Canada he inadvertently revealed how important transportation was to the country. From the search for the Northwest Passage to the building of the transcontinental railroad, the economic imperative of low-cost reliable transportation links across Canada drove what we now call public-private partnerships to finance the huge cost of national projects.

Then, the idea was to stem the natural development of north-south trade into economic and political annexation by the U.S … today over reliance on the U.S. market is still an issue, now combined with the pull of huge and cash-rich Asian markets hungry for resources. And like 130 years ago, finding the money to build and maintain an enormous transportation infrastructure is an economic and political challenge for investors as well as all three levels of government.

For the metalworking industry, it’s doubly important; we use these routes to get products to market, but the transportation infrastructure itself is also a major consumer of metal products. For our sector, the health of transportation infrastructure is a strong predictor of short to medium term economic growth.

The challenge is familiar: dense population concentrations separated by large distances, with an overall population too small to properly fund major networks.

For national rail and road transport, and today shipbuilding as well, public financial support is the only way to minimize investment risk to the point where the private sector can and will share the load. With much of the world still suffering from recession and a federal government committed to minimal interference with free markets, combined with Canadian taxpayer fatigue, resources are limited, but Ottawa is spending billions to support transportation infrastructure. For future economic growth, there’s little choice.

RAIL: A REGULATORY TUG-OF-WAR With 48,000 kilometers of track, Canada has one of the largest rail networks in the world. Rail is uniquely efficient at long haul freight carriage and through containerization, is easily integrated into road and seagoing transport systems, yet Canada’s rail system is maintained and developed mainly by the private sector, which invests more than $1.7 billion annually. According to the Railway Association of Canada, however, a great majority of Can-

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adians (87 per cent) think the government should provide private partnerships. C-52 is too new to judge its impact funding for rail. The current political and economic climate on rail system investment, but for short lines and northfavours public-private partnerships and reduced regulaern resource development, rates and freight tonnage are tion, a strategy supported by the industry but resisted by negotiated over longer terms, reducing investment risk. major shippers whose business models have been built If the global economy continues to recover, look to Asian on subsidized freight rates. While the regulatory climate market demand to drive more projects like Plan Nord. for major transcontinental carriers is as political now as it was a century ago, private-public financing is the future ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE: SPENDING GATHERS SPEED for line expansion in the resource sector.

Canada’s road network is the most important element in Quebec’s “Plan Nord”, for example, will open the the national transportation system, and the degradation of northern interior of the province to mineral development this vital infrastructure is a national problem. Repair and through a partnership between the provincial governremediation, however, is a complex issue, with all three ment’s investment arm, the Caisse de Dépot, and CN. Bulk commodity transport such as minerals and agricultural products are cheapest by rail, and in the case of Northern mineral development, the only cost effective way to get product to market. Asian markets are resource hungry, and with a mature East-West system serving deep water ports on both coasts, there are opportunities for other players to operate profitable lines.

Besides the two major players, CN and • Aluminum, Steel, or Cast Iron - diameter size range from CP, there are 50 short line railroads in Canada, a significant market for ma6-inch to 36-inch chined and fabricated products.

• Jaw heights range: 2-inch, 4-inch, and 6-inch Compared to other transport sectors, • Close tolerances and concentricity easily maintained. however, the unique regulatory environment outside of rail infrastructure will • Allows for complete gripping of the work piece play a major role in expansion. An ex• Special oversized jaws available ample is Bill C-52, the Fair Rail Freight • Excellent for gripping thin-walled parts without distortion Service Act. C-52 requires a railway company, at the request of a shipper, • Machine and tool life extended due to lighter weight jaws, reducing mechanical stress. to make the customer an offer to enter into a contract for service. In effect, the • Made in the USA bill forces railroads into contracts with their customers. The origin of Bill C-52 was lobbying from major shippers and especially the agricultural sector, where the stakes are high. In 2012, Canada’s grain producers exported approximately $17 billion in grain products, as much as 85 per cent of their total sales.

ISO 9000 Certied QMS In 2012, Canadian farmers spent over $1 billion to ship grain by rail; a prairie grain shipment travels an average of 1400 kilometres to reach a destination port. The result is an unusual hybrid DillonManufacturing, Inc. system where rates and service are essentially government controlled, while Peter Seessle | Expertech Dist. & Tech. Inc. new rail infrastructure investment is 44 Goodfellow Crest | Bolton, Ontario handled by the private sector, or publicPhone: 647-960-4478 | Email: peteseessle@rodgers.com

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levels of government holding overlapping responsibilities and funding programs. Federally, the government’s New Building Canada Plan, a component of the Economic Action Plan 2013, targets roads, bridges, subways, commuter rail, and other public infrastructure in cooperation with provinces, territories, and municipalities. The program differs from traditional federal initiatives by including the private sector. Projects costing over $100 million (which encompasses almost all new-build projects such as border bridges and Toronto’s mass transit expansion) will be passed through a “public-private partnership screen” to determine if funding is better raised with the private sector.

To achieve this, Ottawa has created a Crown corporation called PPP Canada, with an independent Board of Directors reporting through the Minister of Finance to Parliament. Compared to rail and marine transportation, where the Constitution gives the Ottawa control over all but intra-provincial networks, road infrastructure spend-

ing is a negotiation between two and often all three levels of government. The issue is money. The New Building Canada Plan uses a complex funding formula including an indexed $22 billion Gas Tax Fund which gives municipalities considerable flexibility to spend federal funding on local infrastructure priorities and an incremental GST Rebate for Municipalities totaling $10.4 billion.

At the provincial and national level, a new Building Canada Fund offers a $4-billion national infrastructure component and $10-billion provincial-territorial infrastructure component that will support projects of national, regional and local significance across the country in a broader range of categories. An additional $1.25 billion in funding is earmarked for P3 Canada, which will be administered

by PPP Canada Inc. While P3 Canada will help determine who can most cost-effectively deliver road infrastructure projects on budget, the power to allocate the projects is still largely locally and provincially-driven.

As the nation urbanizes, the result may be high levels of investment in urban regions like the Greater Toronto Area at the expense of national imperatives such as the Trans-Canada Highway. And as urban population densities drive transport systems away from roads and toward subways and urban rail systems, provincial governments will have fewer incentives to invest in roads that enhance interprovincial trade, especially where they cross borders far from urban centres.

In practice, Ottawa has the authority to redirect funding at will, but with a national election likely in 2015 and traditional Conservative weakness in major urban ridings, there’s considerable federal incentive to address urban mass transit issues over roads.

SHIPBUILDING: DEFENSE SPENDING, ALL AHEAD FULL Shipbuilding is traditionally a highly cyclical “boom-bust” business, and in a Conservative market-driven policy framework, smoothing this business cycle is more important than preserving short term jobs; it’s about ensuring sufficient capacity in domestic yards to prevent reliance on foreign nations for national defense

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needs. Defense is a natural “fig leaf” for the Conservatives, allowing them to use DND contracts to effectively subsidize domestic yards while upgrading the nation’s aging naval and patrol fleet.

The core of the program is the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) launched in 2010 to design and build both combat and non-combat support vessels in two major shipyards. Irving Shipbuilding and, just announced, Vancouver Shipyards are the prime sites, with the Irving yard cutting metal in 2015. To help prepare Irving for the major project, the government has announced the Halifax Shipyard Modernization Program, a $300 million investment which is estimated to boost Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) by $254 million and create 1,700 full-time jobs across Canada, generating $161 million worth of employment income in the country over the two year period.

The Halifax operation will build Navy combat vessels and Arctic/offshore patrol ships. Major ship procurement is a positive step towards a secure indigenous shipbuilding capacity, but as importantly, the program will separate small vessel contracts and set them aside for competitive bidding from smaller yards. To ensure fairness in the bidding process, the program uses third party oversight of the process, although CBC has uncovered significant

cost overruns during the design phase of the patrol ships planned for the Irving yards.

According to Public Works and Government Services Canada, an independent review by International Marine Consultants Ltd. (IMC) suggests that design cost overruns will be made up by efficiencies in construction, although details have not been released. Both Irving Shipbuilding and Vancouver Shipyards offer on-line registration for suppliers interested in bidding on the projects. (see below) From a metalworking perspective, the non-combat support vessels to be built on the west coast offer more opportunity per dollar spent, as weapons systems represent a large portion of combat vessel costs, while for support vessels, hull and superstructure construction are a larger part of the overall unit cost. Support vessels are also larger, with proportional demands on plate forming and welding tasks. While Canadian yards are unlikely to wrest control of major shipbuilding tonnage from its Asian and European centre, the Navy/Coast Guard vessels and maintenance/repair will preserve a two-ocean national shipbuilding capability for the foreseeable future. CM For more information and on-line registration for potential suppliers, visit: Irving Shipbuilding: www.irvingshipbuilding.com/supplier.aspx Seaspan Vancouver Shipyards: www.seaspan.com/supplier_registration.php

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VANCOUVER SHIPYARDS TAPPED FOR MORE VESSELS The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, joined by the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Industry and Regional Minister for British Columbia, announced on October 11th that Vancouver Shipyards will be building up to 10 additional large non-combat ships for the Canadian Coast Guard fleet at an estimated cost of $3.3 billion. Vancouver Shipyards, which was selected to build the non-combat package of vessels through the Government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS).

“The decision supports the long-term benefits of the Government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy in creating a sustainable shipbuilding industry once again here in Canada,” said Minister Finley.

“The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy is a key priority of the Harper Government as we create jobs and generate significant economic benefits in shipbuilding and other industries all across Canada,” added Minister Finley. “Today’s announcement illustrates our commitment to eliminating boom and bust cycles, while providing best value for taxpayers, and ensuring affordable and timely delivery of ships.”

This significant investment will enable the Coast Guard to acquire up to five Medium Endurance Multi-Tasked Vessels and up to five Offshore Patrol Vessels.

“This is yet another example of the unprecedented investment our Government has made in the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian shipbuilding industry,” said the Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. “Our Government is committed to providing the men and women of the Coast Guard with the equipment they need to do the important work we ask of them.”

PowerUpAd-CanMetal1113_layout 10/9/13 11:19 AM Page 1

This investment is in addition to the already announced Offshore Fisheries Science Vessels, Offshore Oceanographic Science Vessel, and Canada’s first Polar Icebreaker that will be constructed at Vancouver Shipyards for the Canadian Coast Guard.

“The Government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy has played a key role in revitalizing British Columbia’s shipbuilding industry, creating thousands of long-term, skilled jobs,” said Minister Moore.

“Today’s announcement will ensure that the job creation is sustained, and that British Columbia continues to be a leader in Canadian shipbuilding.”

For more information on the NSPS, visit http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/ app-acq/sam-mps/snacn-nsps-eng.html.

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Windy City welcomes FABTECH

Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain.

By Nestor Gula ........................................................................................................................................................................................

C

oming back to Chicago, the 2013 edition of FABTECH will have something for everyone. Held beside Lake Michigan, in the North and South Halls of McCormick Place, the show is expected to host about 35,000 attendees visiting 1,500 exhibitors between November 18 and 21.

FABTECH is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event, and will cover over 550,000 net square feet of the convention centre with the newest machines and other manufacturing equipment.

After recent down years the manufacturing sector has a new spring in its step, and is looking forward to the future.

FABTECH will feature panels on “Building an American Manufacturing Workforce for the Future,” and “Solutions for a Qualified Workforce Pipeline”.

The opening keynote address, “Navigating the Fiscal Reality,” will be delivered by Alan Beaulieu, President of ITR Economics on Monday November 18. He will take a look at what’s going on in the U.S., in markets that impact industry, and will present the economic outlook for the global economy. He will host a question and answer ses-

sion the next day where owners and managers of various firms that are grappling with similar issues discuss how to deal with these challenges while remaining competitive.

SPECIAL EDUCATION SESSIONS Special education sessions are always a big feature at FABTECH. The Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International (FMA), SME, Precision Metalforming Association (PMA), and Chemical Coaters Association International (CCAI), are co-sponsoring sessions on automation and robotics, cutting, finishing, forming and fabricating, job shop solutions, lasers, lean, management, stamping, and tube and pipe. Offering practical knowledge, some of these sessions combine classroom instruction followed by expert-led guided tours on the show floor to see technology operating in designated booths.

Of course, welding is also central to FABTECH and the American Welding Society (AWS) is bringing a host of conferences, seminars and other activities to the show.

There are many educational programs such as the Resistance Welding School – a two-day course that covers the

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Salvagnini Experience With more fiber lasers in the field than all competitors combined, Salvagnini has not only the technological expertise, but also the application experience to get you up and running quickly and with cost per part reductions of up to 50%.

And of course, like all products from Salvagnini, the L5 fiber laser cutter can be equipped with the industry’s most innovative automation technology for loading, unloading and part separation.

Salvagnini fiber lasers. The first. And the best.

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basics of resistance welding, and real-life applications of the process. As the only resistance welding school offered in the industry, it is designed to give operators, production supervisors, engineers, and others the opportunity to further their knowledge in the theory, applications, and equipment used in the resistance welding process.

Participants are encouraged to bring welded samples for discussion with the experts.

There will be several competitions this year. Returning is the Professional Welders Competition that will be held on Monday and Tuesday (with the winner announced on Wednesday). Welders will demonstrate their skills to earn the title of “Best Welder in America” by making a single-pass SMAW weld with E7018 on low-carbon steel. Speed and quality will be the criteria to win the $2,500 first prize, $1,000 second prize, and $500 third prize. Professional welders can sign up onsite or DOWNLOAD FROM DETAILING SOFTWARE at the AWS site (www.aws.org).

“New to FABTECH are the Welding Wars Competition, and the AWS 2013 Robotic Arc Welding Contest.”

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WHAT’S NEW AT FABTECH New to FABTECH are the Welding Wars Competition, and the AWS 2013 Robotic Arc Welding Contest. The latter will take place between Tuesday and Thursday, and robotic welding technicians will compete with a timed, written, and practical exercise with a live welding robot (a simulated CRAW coupon-welding exam) to win free training and examination for the AWS Certified Robotic Arc Welding (CRAW) Operator or Technician certification.

The organizer, Vernon L. Mangold,

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Jr. said the contestants have a time limit to program the computer and robot. Also, Certified Robot Arc Welders are not eligible to enter. The first time this competition ran, “the guy who won the contest was an undergrad student and had never programmed an ABB robot in his life,” he said. “In fact, he beat two graduates who were trained on ABB and one professional. The winner was a good manual welder. This underscores what we have said for years that you give me a good welder I’ll make a good robot welder out of them. The reverse is not always true.”

In the Welding Wars Competition competing teams will fabricate weldment on a supplied print using GTAW, GMAW, and plasma cutting, with sheared and cut material provided, within a time limit of two hours. Organizer Professor James E. (Jim) Greer said, “We expect to sign current high school or college students for the competition,

and hope to have around 14 teams of 3 persons each.”

All weldments will be judged by a panel of current AWS Certified Welding Inspectors and Senior AWS Certified Welding Inspectors, he said. For more information on the competitions visit: www.AWS.org.

Finally, FABTECH is not just about business, and can also include some fun. Tuesday, November 19, the conference will host a happy hour between 3:00-5:00pm so participants can mingle in a less formal manner. Since Chicago is home to Second City it’s fitting that the next day FABTECH will host a Cocktails and Comedy night.

This event will feature a group of short-form improvisers specializing in quick-witted comedy.

For more information, visit www.fabtechexpo.com for conference pricing, schedules and accommodation. CM

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KUKA KR Quantec Robot used in robot production in Augsburg, Germany

Where are your robots?

Is your shop ready for a robot invasion?

By Nestor Gula ........................................................................................................................................................................................

T

he promise of robotic automation has been around for several decades but this revolution has come at us more like evolution. There have been various reasons why adoption of automation has been slow in the North American manufacturing sector — but the time is nigh, and robots are definitely on our doorstep.

“The last two years have been record levels for the robot industry as manufacturers adapt to a shortage of skilled workers and competing with off-shore companies,” said Chris Anderson, Product Marketing Manager — Welding at Yaskawa America. “Robots have become more powerful in control technology, and speed while not increasing in price.”

The use of robotics has improved because of speed, ease of use, productivity, reliability, and safety according to Michael Sharpe, Staff Engineer at Fanuc Robotics. “In the last three years we have seen a resurgence in reshoring, and this is one of the key things that is causing the recent economic growth. Automation has evolved quite a bit.”

The use of robots in manufacturing has replaced “the rigid, and expensive special machines – that were still customary 15 years ago – with highly flexible automation solutions,” noted Wolfgang Meisen, head of corporate

communications for Kuka Roboter GmbH in Germany.

“The use of industrial robots has increased steadily in recent years. For Kuka’s customers, automation ‘made

by Kuka Roboter’ is the decisive key to higher productivity and greater cost-effectiveness. It improves product quality, reduces cost-intensive use of materials and minimizes the consumption of dwindling energy resources.”

The robots that a manufacturer can acquire these days are much smarter and generally more adaptable than they were just a few years ago. “Robots are easy to operate,” said Sharpe. “It has really been brought down to that almost GameBoy/Nintendo type level where you can easily run it. It’s not difficult to program the motions, because you have pre-jogging, and the ability to visualise the 4D graphics. This reduces the risk of crashing the robot, or getting it into the wrong area. But as far as just point teaching the robots, we have really come a long way in the area of simplification.”

One reason for the robots getting smarter is the added ability for robots to “see” what they are doing. “The integration of cameras and sensors has become ‘tighter’ while the cost of electronics has come down,” said Anderson. “This provides higher level capability for the robot to do less structured tasks. In addition, robot design and

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sensors are combining to provide human scale ergonomics and perception to perform more assembly type applications.”

The integration of sensors and safety enables increasing production flexibility.

“Multi-functional robot controls can take over additional tasks which are needed for a complete robot-based automation solution, like process control, motion control of additional axis, NC-motion, logic control, safety control,” said Meisen.

“Integrated solutions reduce investment costs, reduce the communication effort between the different components, lead to an improved process quality (since motion and process control are optimally synchronized), and facilitate configuration, and diagnosis since the operator has only one user-interface.

Simplified configuration, programming, and engineering reduce set-up times due to powerful, integrated engineering tools.

Compliant and sensor-based motion enables programming of complex assembly tasks in significantly shorter times than programming with position-controlled approaches. Moreover, compliant motion in combination with safety enables teaching by manually guiding the robot.”

A new development, Kinetiq Teaching, makes the robot “smart” by interpreting the forces generated by a programmer gripping the robot’s welding torch and guiding it into proper location. Designed mostly for welding, “No in-depth programming knowledge is now required to program a robot,” says Guy Robert,

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The M-2000i from Fanuc has a wrist capacity of either 980kg, for the M2000iA/900L model or 1350kg with the large capacity M2000iA1200 can handle. The former model has a reach of up to 4.7 metres and a 6.2 metre vertical stroke. The latter model can handle payloads that previously required two synchronized robots working in tandem.

Marketing Director of Robotiq. Combined with a simplified graphic interface on the touch screen, the robot can be programmed in less time, and requires less skill/training.

This can help job shops justify robotics by reducing the set-up time for new parts and allowing the programming task to be performed by the robot operator.

In the past, industrial robots were used almost exclu-

sively in the automotive sector, and in series production.

Robotics are now more flexible, and can be adapted to nearly any task. “You are seeing more robots in press brake, and forming applications,” says Sharpe. “There are new sensors, and the integration of these sensors to the robot motion path to allow the robot to follow the path or the bend of the tube off a tube bender or sheet metal off a press brake.” With the expansion into new industries and areas of robotic automation, there are new requirements for the development of robots. “Thanks to the systematic, ongoing development of robot, and control technology, KUKA robots have now become established in many other sectors besides the automotive industry,” said Meisen.

“The primary objective here is the development of applications in new markets – particularly in the fields of foodstuffs, plastics, metalworking, foundry, electronics, medical technology, and the entertainment industry.”

Robots, and even the control units, are becoming smaller and more compact, which minimizes required floor space and offers opportunities to integrate more robots, and increase the productivity. “With energy-efficient controls, and weight reduction of the robots, energy consumption can be reduced,” he said. Mobile platforms lead to more flexible production concepts since the robot can move to the place where it is needed, instead of being fixed

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KR QUANTEC ultra K is a high-performance shelf-mounted robot that is powerful, extremely stiff, and precise. Suitable for cycle times up to 25 per cent shorter, maximum path accuracy, and high energy efficiency – even in the high payload ranges. With a weight of just 1,215 kg, a long reach of 3,700 mm, and a payload capacity of 150 kg, the KR 150 R3700 ultra K achieves a pose repeatability of <± 0.06 mm.

to the ground. “More flexible logistics concepts can be realized with mobile platforms in industrial production compared to inflexible conveyor solutions,” said Meisen.

“Industrial production benefits from the optimal integration of robots in the production system. Robots can be programmed in the same manner like other machines, namely with a PLC, and adequate function blocks.”

The increase use of robots in manufacturing means less labour force is needed, and implies there could be a resurgence of manufacturing in Canada and North America.

“Manufacturing output has continued to rise over recent decades without a corresponding rise in labour,” according to Anderson. “Global competition, and rising healthcare costs have increased the pressure to increase output with lower costs. The aging workforce population is resulting in a shortage of the labour pool for skilled manufacturing workers.” Sharpe states that, “robotics haven’t really displaced many workers, but it has changed or shifted what their application is, and what they are doing on the job site.”

“When purchasing a new piece of fabricating equipment, it is best to look at robotic or automated load/ unload of the machine at that time,” said Anderson.

“When looking at current operations, such as welding, adding a robotic welder to increase capacity may be a more practical investment than hiring more welders.

Several companies have indicated they are adding robotic welders simply because they can not fill manual welder positions.” CM

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WELDING NEWS

Seminars to enhance productivity Lincoln Electric holds seminar to promote automation and productivity

By Nestor Gula ....................................................................................................................................................................................................

A

dvancements in technology move at a breakneck speed and it is at times difficult to spend the time to see what’s new around the corner and how it could benefit your company.

To this end, on September 24, 2013, Lincoln Electric Company of Canada and Linde Gases organized an Automation & Productivity Seminar at their Canadian head office to introduce manufacturers to the benefits of automation in their manufacturing process. Bruce Clark, Director, Marketing & Export Sales, Lincoln Electric Company of Canada said that they try to stage two of these types of seminars a year. “One in Toronto and one in Calgary. It is more of a productivity seminar — whatever contributes to productivity is what we try to educate our customers on.”

The keynote address was presented by Ian T. Howcroft, Vice President of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) Ontario. He gave a brief outline of the organizations activities and the state of manufacturing in Canada. “The competition is fierce. You have to continue to make sure your customers are happy. You are not just competing with the people across the street or across the country,” Howcroft said.

Chris Barber, Lincoln Electric — Automation Solutions went through a detailed description of the inner workings of the robotic systems available to manufacturers. He detailed the use of laser touch sensing, 2D and 3D vision applications among other innovations.

An interesting address was given by Joe Berkmanns, National Technical Manager at The Linde Group, who spoke on how shielding gases could be used not just to speed up the transfer of metal during welding but to also provide a safer and healthier work environment and thereby increasing the morale and production of the workforce.

Arc Products, a subsidiary of Lincoln Electric opened the presentation of Mechanized Automation that is perfect for

(far left) Lincoln’s Chris Barber demonstrates a robotic welding setup (centre) Participants look on as a robot goes about welding a preprogrammed part. (right) Ian T. Howcroft, Vice President of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) Ontario addresses Lincoln’s Automation & Productivity Seminar

Mark Osowski, product manager for Burny Kaliburn, gives an animated talk on the advances in plasma cutting

repetitive applications. He presented their orbital TIG welding solution. Brad Mutshler from Bug-O presented their innovative welding and cutting solutions. Mark Osowski product manager for Burny Kaliburn gave a detailed presentation on cutting automation and new technologies developed in plasma Kevin Hesch, sales manager for Robot Master showed how productivity can be increased with the company’s off-line robotic programming system, which can replicate the moves a robot makes as an animation, thereby saving time and correcting any potential errors that might happen on the shop floor.

The same 20 participants were able to see demonstrations of automated welding in action towards the end of the seminar and pose practical questions to the operators of said equipment. Clark suggested that anyone interested in productivity improvements, and would like to attend one of their seminars, can check the company’s website to learn when the next seminar is scheduled, the topics to be covered, and who would benefit by attending. CM

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Lopes Ltd., Coniston, Ontario

Lopes Mechanical and Electrical Limited This Sudbury family business has grown into an international operation and a major local employer

By Jim Anderton, Editor ...........................................................................................................................................................................

A

sk most Canadians about Sudbury, Ontario and they’ll usually tell you about mining, a treeless moonscape, smoke-belching smelters and the iconic Big Nickel.

While the Big Nickel is still there, most of those negative impressions of the city are decades old. Sudbury is in fact a clean, attractive city with a considerable manufacturing base, and one of the most successful is Lopes Mechanical and Electrical Limited, located just east of Sudbury in Coniston, Ontario. Lopes is a major operation, employing 170 in a campus with multiple buildings (fabricating in three buildings with 40,000 square feet ) with low and high bays, heavy lift crane capability and a rail spur that allows inside loading and unloading of flat cars. The firm uses over a hundred vehicles in its fleet, so many that Lopes operates a stand alone repair shop with licensed

mechanics to keep the wide mix of lifting, hauling, generating, and welding equipment in good condition.

Founded in 1976, the company specializes in large fabricated structures, but there are few projects that Lopes won’t tackle. “We do everything”, says second generation owner Felix Lopes Jr., adding “oil, chemical, nuclear, agriculture, transportation, pulp and paper, institutional, commercial energy and, of course, mining. We serve all industries except food processing. We work in stainless and carbon steels, copper, aluminum; we work in all metals. A big part of our business is installation. We have customers from all across Canada, and in the U.S. We have customers in Africa. Three years ago we hired a business development manager … before it was word of mouth. Right now the energy sector keeps us busy as well as mining and potash. It’s a tough year”.

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Lopes serves primarily Ontario but can and will install equipment anywhere: “Flues, vessels, dust collectors, whatever the customer wants. Most customers want carbon and stainless steels and aluminum. We can ship in one piece or multiple pieces for field installation. Most of our components are field installed by us.”

Control over fabrication and installation gives Lopes a distinct advantage over straight fabricators, as it lets the firm suggest a redesign to the customer where it would mean a more efficient installation. Changing a large weldment into a two-piece design, for example, can eliminate the need to move power lines or use expensive special wide load road permits for trucking.

Equipment includes rollers, press brakes shears and automated plate cutting units. Crane capacity is 33 tonnes and the company can process plate up to 4 inches thick. On the welding and cutting side, Lopes is primarily an ESAB shop, says Lopes: “we’ve been in business for almost 40 years, so we’ve tried other cultures. For us they’re number one. We’ve increased our employment even with automation. When the demand is there you need the productivity of automation. We’ve never laid off because of automation.”

Certifications are ISO 9001-2008 as well as CWB, TSSA and ASME qualification, allowing Lopes to build pressure vessels and complex process equipment.It’s a

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This tank is typical of the major installations Lopes handles. Lopes owns the vehicles and rigging equipment as well.

big operation, but small orders are welcome too. “I have $12,000-a-year clients looking for bent angles, $150200 at a time, and we just finished a $20 million dollar contract for a good client. That $12,000-a-year client gives us steady business, that’s important. We work for the process industries right down to the simplest piece of steel.”

The overall impression walking the facility is ‘order’.

Housekeeping is excellent with bright working areas and fresh air. Bays are both high and wide, with lots of working

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Lopes also handles heavy fabrication. This grating is part of a hydroelectric project, screening debris from the turbines.

Lopes Ltd. prefers ESAB equipment, using this Avenger 2 gantry plasma machine and a CaB 300 column and boom unit for submerged arc welding.

(above) The company is certified to weld pressure vessels. (left) Lopes uses technology wherever it saves time and effort, such as this coil dereeler/ straightener..

area and large roll-up doors are positioned to allow much of the truck loading to take place indoors, a real plus in Northern Ontario winters. In the summertime, there is also one of the most unusual employee benefits in any fab shop anywhere: golf. Lopes owns its own industrial park, with their operation as well as other businesses on site, plus a flying strip and a company owned nine-hole golf course.

Located on the site of an old smelter, the Coniston operation is an excellent example of how the Sudbury region has evolved from a smokestack mining town into a place where high-tech manufacturing takes pace in a clean environment.

“When I took over we had 48 employees … now we’re

170”, states Felix Jr. “We’re successful because of my father and the team we have. Without them we wouldn’t be where we are now. Our number one asset for the business is the people, then technology and then equipment. We’re a stable company with good equipment and talented people … we can do anything. Scheduling is very important. When companies pick us it feels great, like an athlete winning a gold medal. Recently we won a contract over two U.S. companies … it feels good.”

Does Felix Lopes love this industry? “I can’t wait to come in on Monday morning. I love the products we build, our clients, and the people I work with. Even the bad days are good; we learn to be better. We solve problems quickly and it makes us better and stronger.” CM

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The Trumpf CoolLine option allows close quarters cutting of thick metal with geometries not possible with conventional laser cutting.

Water Under The Bridge TRUMPF has developed water as a process aid for laser cutting ... how does it work?

By Jim Anderton, Editor ...........................................................................................................................................................................

L

aser cutting is different from old-school oxy-fuel processes in that cutting is accomplished by focusing energy in a tiny spot to cause localized melting of the workpiece, then blowing the molten metal out of the kerf.

It’s a physical process, unlike oxy-fuel which uses heat and oxygen to burn the metal away. That’s why cutting torches work under water, but in a laser process, adding water would seem to be the opposite of a useful aid.

Who wants to cool a heat-driven process? In fact, there are excellent reasons to consider water as a process aid and TRUMPF has developed a system that Canadian Metalworking had the opportunity to see in action this summer at the firm’s Ditzingen, Germany headquarters near Stuttgart.

TRUMPF’s system, called CoolLine was launched last

year and is an option for the firm’s 2-D laser machines.

It uses a specially designed laser cutting head, a choice of nozzles and a water supply tank. While processing, the CoolLine nozzle directs a water mist around the laser beam as it reaches the workpiece. The mist reduces the heat transferred in the immediate cutting zone to achieve contours that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to process. More efficient cutting of small sidewalls and difficult geometries is possible, especially in thick material.

TRUMPF also reports process reliability improvements when laser processing low-grade materials or material of varying composition.

Perhaps the biggest cost saving in laser cutting traditional metals with water assist is in cutting nests in thick material. Since the CoolLine option reduces the heat af-

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fected zone considerably, it allows parts to be nested more closely than was previously possible. By removing the heat and reducing the gap, fabricators process more parts and reduce scrap. Smaller webs significantly reduce the amount of raw material between parts, allow fabricators to more fully utilize the sheet.

TRUMPF Laser Product Group sales engineer Brett Thompson describes the process in greater detail: “Keeping the workpiece cool has a benefit in processing thicker gauge carbon steel. The benefit is seen in increased edge quality, allowing the fabricator to process more narrow contours that would otherwise be possible and – perhaps most importantly – the ability to better utilize the material by keeping smaller gaps between individual parts. This also results in more efficient and faster processing because it allows the user to perform acts such as corner cooling or to cutting random contours at greater distances to achieve the same results, more quickly.”

Experienced laser users who cut complex nested shapes often encounter edge or web conditions where a previous cut or edge limits the heat flow away from the cut, sometimes forcing skip cutting or less efficient approach angles. In some cases, it’s not possible to complete the part in a single cut, which can also produce quality issues if the cut must be repeatedly started and stopped at the part edge. Water cooling not only addresses the heat issue, but has a side benefit of simplifying the cut path programming in difficult or intricate nested parts.

Although multiple materials can be cut, Thompson notes that the process is primarily focused on carbon steels. Most industrial processes that use water in fact use water as a carrier for sophisticated additive packages like buffers, corrosion inhibitors or electrolytes. According to Thompson, however, “CoolLine uses simple de-ionized water. The advantage is in the ability to use capacitive sensing, as well as not gumming up the works with a water-soluble oil solution, which would require a purge of the system in between processing jobs. It is not recirculated it just flows from a tank to the nozzle directly.”

Water is an excellent heat transfer medium since it cools both by conducting heat from the solid metal into the bulk liquid and also by flashing to steam, with that liquid-to-gas phase change responsible for very high heat transfer rates if needed. The fact that it’s cheap and readily available means an open loop feed system is viable, which is not only cost effective, it eliminates filtration and the need for emulsifiers or antimicrobial additives. Says Thomson, “The CoolLine option is relatively inexpensive, and is easily paid for if the user cuts a lot of thicker mild steel, just from better sheet utilization alone. Because of this, it has become a pretty common option on our CO2 machines.”

Parts with fine internal detail like this screen are difficult to cut in thick metals. The web is too thin to absorb the heat from the adjacent cut, but the ability of water to carry away large amounts of heat as it flashes to steam allows fine detail cutting.

Not only does the water flow open-loop, it’s function is strictly to assist the laser, not act as a water jet cutter or high pressure flushing agent, according to Thompson:

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“The water pressures are rather low, and it’s only function is to cool. There is no flushing benefit with water cooling.”

Thick steel cutting continues to be a war fought between laser, plasma, water jet and flame cutting processes.

Water assist is a new way to keep the very high power densities offered by lasers in the kerf and not weldling adjacent parts in a tight skeleton. With a simple modi-

fication to TRUMPF’s current 2D laser equipment, the CoolLine option is growing in popularity. “Water cooling will be a likely option on machines geared toward processing thicker gauge carbon steels”, declares Thompson, adding, “since the cost is relatively low, it is beneficial for fabricators to consider.” CM

RFID for laser lens monitoring RFID chips are common in retail and wholesale consumer goods, but Trumpf has adapted the technology to laser cutting lenses

R

FID, an acronym for radio frequency identification, isa technology that allows an outside radio source to interrogate the RFID chip and revel information stored in it. For consumer goods, it’s the most efficient way to control inventory, since th product doesn’t have to be physically rad or scanned with a code reader… close proximity tteh radio frequency reader’s antenna is enough. TRUMPF has enhanced its LensLine sensor system for 2D laser cutting machines by combining it with an RFID (radio frequency identification) lens to achieve greater accuracy, process reliability and user friendliness. The LensLine condition monitoring function improves the reliability of cutting processes and reduces the frequency of lens cleaning.

When cutting sheet metal with high power lasers, dirt particles accumulate on the focusing lens in the laser cutting head. The machine operator must regularly check, clean or replace the lens to ensure process reliability. With a visual inspection, transparent deposits are not easy to detect. The enhanced condition monitoring function of the LensLine RFID sensor system analyzes the degree of contamination faster and more accurately.

The new RFID lens is a standard feature of all TRUMPF TruLaser Series 3000 machines with a CO2 laser. The RFID

A Trumpf TruLaser 3030 2D CO2 laser cutting system with the LensLine sensor system.

chip attached to the lens records condition monitoring data and other information such as when the lens has been cleaned. The condition monitoring test can also be carried out automatically, at predefined intervals.

The test results indicate exactly when the lens needs to be cleaned so operators can optimize the cleaning cycle without time consuming visual inspections or preventive maintenance. The RFID chip technology has been miniaturized to the point where a chip can be embedded directly into schematic display the lens, allowing remote monitoring of the lens provides a complete condition. overview of the lens cleaning cycle so the operator must only intervene when absolutely necessary. The LensLine enhancement enables customers to cut cleaning times by up to 40 percent.

The new RFID technology also increases the reliability of the cutting process by ensuring that only lenses with the correct focal length are installed in the machine, in the correct orientation. This LensLine sensor system delivers objective measurements indicating the degree of lens contamination and also provides additional protection if the lens is not cleaned at the prescribed intervals. If particles accumulate beyond a certain concentration, the lens may absorb too much laser energy causing it to overheat, or in the worst case, start to decompose. LensLine detects the first signs of this thermal degradation process and responds by switching off the laser within a few milliseconds. Once the lens has been replaced, the cutting process can be continued safely.

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When you need dependable tooling solutions designed to solve your toughest fabrication challenges, turn to Wilson Tool Canada. For 45 years you’ve known us as Exacta Precision and Exacta Fabtool. As Wilson Tool Canada we’ll continue to offer all the standard and custom tooling solutions you’ve come to rely on, plus the Wilson Tool line of tooling with shorter lead times and reduced shipping costs.

Whatever your tooling needs, choose Wilson Tool Canada. Call 888.678.9966 for stamping or punch press tooling. Call 888.649.6111 for press brake tooling. Or visit www.wilsontool.com today.

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CUTTING EDGE

LVD Strippit hosts event at its Belgium headquarters A new small part press, the Dyna-Press, was previewed ahead of the machine’s introduction at FABTECH. By: Jim Anderton ................................................................................................................................................................................................

LVD Strippit machines under construction at the firm’s Gullegem, Belgium facility.

L

VD Strippit launched a press event September 23rd at the firm’s Gullegem, Belgium headquarters.

The company previewed laser and metal forming technology as well as equipment which will be on display at FABTECH in November.

The event included a tour of the machine manufactur­ ing plant, which emphasizes lean manufacturing principles.

CADMAN software and a new generation of machine controls were demonstrated, including a smartphone app for bending.

Integrated sheet metal processing is the theme, according to Group Marketing Manager Matt Fowles, “It’s about ‘art to part’” he said, adding, “It’s always important to match the right equipment to the right application and

integrate diverse processes like punching, bending and laser cutting with software.

“It’s about finding the right balance between price and performance. Large machines tend to be application specific. We serve industries as diverse as medical/ scientific, defense, automotive and many others.”

A new small part press, the Dyna­Press, was previewed ahead of the machine’s introduction at FABTECH. Also on display in Chicago will be the Strippit PX Series punch press, which has bending and tapping capability.

LVD was founded in 1952 in Moeskroen, Belgium making hydraulic baling presses in support of the local textile industry.

Automotive deep drawing followed and the firm evolved into a full line metalworking machinery manufacturer. LVD employs over 1000 in over 45 countries globally. CM

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CUTTING EDGE

Norton introduces new abrasives blend and fast cut products to NorZon Plus line

N

orton Abrasives has introduced an upgrade of their BEST­tier depressed center wheels for right angle grinding applications. Norton NorZon Plus wheels now use a proprietary blend of Norton’s patented, newest generation SG ceramic alumina, and Norton BlueFire zirconia alumina abrasives, combined with a new high performance bond system for significantly improved grain micro­fracturing.

The new Norton NorZon Plus line has also been expanded with the introduction of Norton NorZon Plus Fast Cut Depressed Center Wheels, which provide the fastest material removal in the industry.

Norton NorZon Plus’ improved micro­fracturing capability provides a continual supply of serrated cutting edges, increasing productivity, wheel life and

cost effectiveness across a broad spectrum of right angle grinding applications. New Norton NorZon Plus wheels provide 50­100 per cent better overall performance than competitive ceramic alumina wheels. NorZon Plus Fast Cut provides a 15­30 per cent improved cut rate over standard NorZon Plus wheels.

“Whether the user is looking for extremely fast stock removal, maximum productivity, wheel life or durability, the new Norton NorZon Plus family of Fast Cut, All Purpose and Long Life products provide the optimum performance solution for all applications in right angle grinding,” said Debbie Gaspich, Norton Abrasives Director of Product Management, North America.

The new Norton NorZon Plus is ideal for steel, stainless steel and other ferrous metals. Wheels are available in sizes 4­9” in ¼” thickness.

Norton Abrasives will be showcasing the new NorZon Plus line, including the new Fast Cut offering, at FABTECH 2013, at Booth # N461. www.nortonabrasives.com

HACO Canada moves to Brampton

H

aco Canada has announced major changes in the firm. Haco is relocating to a new state of the art facility at 40 Holtby Avenue, Brampton, Ontario, with phone numbers and email addresses remaining unchanged. The company has also announced a new general manager, Ron Palick, the Group General Manager of Haco Atlantic and now Haco Canada.

Kyle Siebert will now assume the role of Service Manager.

Since June 3, 2013 Ron Palick has been on board Haco Atlantic as Acting Incoming Manager. Palick previously worked for Wilson Tool International and more recently for Prima Power (formerly Ron Palick Finn­Power), where he was involved in the high­speed CNC turrets and laser cutting sectors. CM

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CUTTING EDGE

Rust blocker with low VOC Content and low odour

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ri Touch Amber Low­VOC from Birchwood Technologies is a rust blocker with low VOC (volatile organic content) and virtually no odour. Rated for 96­120 hours salt spray and 600+ hours humidity protection, Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC meets water displacement test Mil­C­16173 and stain test Mil­C­ 22235A. With a 248°F flash point, Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC is effective in manufacturing plants that are under air quality restrictions and in areas with flammability hazards. The rust protection Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC provides is more than double that of other water­ based products, according to Birchwood Technologies, the manufacturer.

Dri­Touch Amber Low­VOC can be used on packaged products such as hand tools without causing odour, air contamination or fire safety problems.

An ideal general purpose rust inhibitor, it can also be applied effectively to raw materials such as bar steel and castings prior to cutting and machining. Excellent

as a corrosion preventive over black oxide or phosphate conversion coatings, Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC seals out corrosion and enhances depth of colour. It can also be used on uncoated metal surfaces for long­term storage. Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC liquid has a very thin consistency — similar to penetrating oil — that quickly penetrates recessed areas and lifts moisture from blind holes. Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC can be applied to wet or dry surfaces by immersion or pump spray process. The non­conductive Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC film dries quickly and provides break­in lubricity where needed without interfering with proper operation.

Also important, it is compatible with most lubricants, hydraulic oil and cutting oil. The pale, amber Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC liquid produces a film thickness of 0.15 mil and provides effective coverage of approximately 1500 square feet per gallon. Dri Touch Amber Low­VOC is available in 5 or 55­gallon drums. www.birchwoodtechnologies.com

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Canada faces shortage of NDT inspectors More entry-level positions needed, industry group says

By Rebecca Reid, writer and editor with Business Information Group, LP .................................................................................................

E

mployers need to create more entry-level positions for non-destructive testing (NDT) inspectors to help alleviate a skills shortage, according to the Canadian Institute for NDE (CINDE).

NDE stands for non-destructive evaluation—and includes techniques such as ultrasonic testing, radiography and thermography. NDT is a crucial part of quality and maintenance found in many industry sectors, including the nuclear utility, oil and gas, petrochemical, manufacturing, aerospace and construction sectors.

“Against that backdrop, Canada faces a shortage everywhere. We need to pay more attention at all levels: federally, provincially and at the owner/operator level to know whether or not we’re doing the right things to attract more people to this important occupation,” says Larry Cote, president and CEO of CINDE. “The anecdotal evidence to date suggests we’re not because all industry sectors are hollering for people.”

Much of the current workforce is nearing retirement and the existing hiring climate has created a Catch-22

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Another method commonly used in NDT is guided wave testing, which is different than traditional ultrasonic testing. Although both use ultrasonic waves, guided wave testing is done at a much lower frequency than ultrasonic testing. It is commonly used in pipeline testing.

where many employers won’t consider job applicants without some level of NDT certification from the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB).

Obtaining certification, however, requires on-the-job experience, according to Trends in NDT Certification and Training in Canada, a report written in 2011 by Cote, P.K. Yuen, the manager of Natural Resource Canada’s NonDestructive-Testing Certification Body, and John Zirnhelt, a senior engineer from Ponteca Inc. “It’s the employers and owner/operators that need to step up, not just the certification body and training organizations,” says Cote, pleading: “If you’re in an industry with high demand and a reasonable profit margin, please invest in the training and development of a competent workforce.”

Cote notes some employers that do offer entry-level positions feel frustrated when employees don’t stick around after obtaining enough work experience to get certified.

However, this problem could be minimized if more companies offered entry-level jobs to new graduates.

In early May, Cote attended a meeting of the CGSB 48/2 Committee that sets the national standard for the qualification and certification of NDT personnel in Canada. Based on numbers from the NRCan NDT CB, the committee estimates there are about 5,200 CGSB-

certified professionals in Canada—not enough to keep pace with the demand based on feedback from some committee members, he notes.

The lack of certified personnel has current NDT inspectors working lots of overtime, Cote says, and there is general agreement that employee burn-out is increasingly an issue.

It appears to be a worldwide problem, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan, based in Mountain View, Calif.

“What is happening in the industry is that there are qualified NDT technicians coming out of the training institutes. However, they do not possess the necessary skill-set or experience to perform high-quality inspection jobs,” says Nikhil Jain, an analyst with the firm.

“The skills shortage are related to knowing how to perform the inspection and how to interpret and analyze the data collected, and a lot of it comes down to experience,” he notes.

Cote agrees gaining field experience is crucial to reliable inspections. It’s often a physically and mentally demanding job, and inexperienced NDT inspectors are more likely to miss a serious defect in a new part or flaw in a piece of equipment nearing the end of its life. The potential consequences of a missed or wrong inspection could be catastrophic to safety, the environment and the financial bottom-line.

Even experienced operators are more likely to make errors if they’re overworked and mentally fatigued, he says.

Another factor contributing to the skills shortage is the amount and type of training available from colleges, industry organizations, private career colleges and employers.

Cote’s report cites an increase in self-guided, computer- and Internet-based education that is eroding the most effective way of learning NDT techniques: hands-on, classroom-based, training at organizations that deliver practical labs for students along with their academic lectures.

Graduates may not be receiving their education in a way that best prepares them for NDT certification exams and the workforce, he explains.

THE NEW STANDARD However, if the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) technical committee chooses to adopt the latest version of the ISO 9712 standard as-is, inspectors would receive their certification in two years rather than five.

As Manager of the Non-Destructive Testing Certification Body for Natural Resources Canada, P.K. Yeun does not have a say if the standard is adopted. Because NRCan is the implementer of the standard he cannot vote but he noted the two sides of the argument.

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“The nature of people is that they may start the process and not complete it because it takes such a long period of time,” Yeun noted.

On the other hand, reducing the time-to-certification would mean recently certified inspectors would be put on the job with less experience than in the past.

An argument in favour of adopting the new standard would be to improve worker mobility and to facilitate global harmonization of standards.

Yeun says the move towards a single standard started in last year and in Europe there are talks of shedding the equivalent EN 473 in in favour of the ISO 9712.

NDT inspectors certified in other countries under the same version of the standard could more easily take employment Canada and vice-versa.

The technical committee will vote before the year is out.

REVAMPING RECERTIFICATION Another element of the ISO 9712 — one that Canada has already committed to adopting — is developing and implementing a proper recertification program, Yeun said.

“It means people need to be retested and doublechecked in their competencies,” he said. “This is something we are planning to implement in the near future.”

Right now recertification is simply an administrative procedure inspectors must undertake every three years.

Some in the industry argue the recertification process is unfair because other trade professions are not subjected to this type of scrutiny.

Proponents of inspector retesting argue the consequences of making an error — a bridge collapse, a plane crash, a nuclear reactor failure, or pipeline rupture, for example — could be so devastating that it would be irresponsible not to ensure NDT inspectors maintain their competencies.

As a side note, the nuclear and aerospace industries already require inspectors to receive further training than NRCAN provides. Yeun said NRCAN isn’t going to branch out into providing industry-specific areas, but will stick with its broad-sectored approach with the goal of training inspectors to work in myriad industries. However, inspectors working in those industries still need to recertify with NRCAN. Another argument for requiring recertification every few years is to ensure inspectors are up-to-snuff on the new technologies. Advancements in recent years — particularly in ultrasonics and radiography — have resulted in an influx of new testing equipment.

Yeun said NRCAN is establishing technical committees on how to incorporate some of these emerging technologies, such as ultrasonic phased array and digital radiog-

For most small parts in critical applications, magnetic particle detection is a fast and cost-effective way to find cracks. Unless automated however, magnetic particle and die based crack detection systems rely on operator training and close visual inspection.

raphy — the two largest product segments according to data from Frost & Sullivan--into the National Certification Program.

STAYING IN THE INDUSTRY The good news is experienced inspectors seem to be staying in the industry, Yeun said.

Every year NRCAN looks at the number of inspectors that choose to recertify. Its data shows attrition rate in 2012 was 10.1 per cent, compared with 15.8 per cent in 2006.

The rate decreased to 14.5 per cent in 2007, increased to 15 per cent in 2008 and dropped to 11.7 per cent in 2009, and has been decreasing since.

“There seems to be — maybe as a reaction to the demand — less people leaving the trade, or retiring early,” Yeun noted.

It’s too early to tell whether this will be a long-standing trend, he noted. Attrition rates could increase again once the spike in demand is over.

But as the continued reluctance of employers to hire and train less experienced inspectors continues, finding a way to get critical hands-on experience may be tougher than doing the job itself. CM

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Chris Josephs, Gerry Rowley, Neil MacLennan and Norm Banton. Not pictured: Trevor Digby

XTREME STEEL & PROFILES No plate or sheet job is too big or too small for this Georgetown, Ontario operation

By Jim Anderton, Editor ...........................................................................................................................................................................

S

teel sheet and plate seems like a commodity business to many fabricators, but in Georgetown, Ontario, north-west of Toronto, Xtreme Steel & Profiles attacks the multiple problems of low and medium volume part making with a mass-production mindset.

Occupying 27,000 square feet of high-bay with extensive gantry crane coverage, the firm is co-owned by four partners, Norm Banton, Gerry Rowley, Gord Fawcett and Neil MacLennan. Xtreme launched in 2010, when Norm left his previous employer and decided to strike out on his own. Gord Fawcett was a perfect fit, owning a pre-existing manufacturing company (Innovative Steel Systems, Inc.) with room to spare, and bringing some starting equipment into the operation.

“We know plate”, says Norm, adding, “we set out a game plan and we contacted everyone we knew in the industry and took a nibble out of the market, which kept us under the radar. Eventually, the cat was let out of the bag, but every customer we had previously was feeding us business.” Why do it? Gerry Rowley says simply, “Because we could. We had many years working together and we knew the formula.”

For Gord, moving into the sheet and plate business was a tactical move that suited his preexisting business goals: “It was a win-win situation; I had a 94,000 square foot building and I was only occupying 20,000 square feet and quickly learned that it was a difficult challenge to fill it with tenants. It worked, but my long term goal was to align myself with companies I’d have an ownership position in.”

With sheet and plate experts eager to start a new company combined with a partner with industrial space and steel fabricating management experience, it’s no surprise that Xtreme has hit the ground running. Gord describes the beginning: “I had a pre-existing table burning for parts that I was using for a product I made in house, but I learned quickly when cutting for others that it’s a tough game without the right buying and the right customers.

Norm brought his experience in the sheet and plate business, and I brought machine knowledge and ancillary equipment for milling, drilling, tapping, etc.”

Xtreme is not a mild steel shop. The firm cuts high strength and high hardness grades of ferrous plate for multiple industries requiring heavy-duty, tough application parts such as mining, construction and heavy machine

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building. For abrasion resistant applications, for example, Xtreme works with ThyssenKrupp XAR series of grades with hardness approaching 600 Brinell and for structural uses, CSA grades like the popular “44W” and “QT100” are available in thicknesses from .188-6.00 inches. For severe service applications requiring light gauges, Xtreme offers the specialty grade SWEBOR 500 starting at 3mm thick.

While flame cutting is still a component of the business, the centerpiece of the Xtreme operation is a Messer precision plasma cutting system. The HPR400XD 12-by 80-foot table is mated to a pair of TMC4520 gantries for downdraft high performance bevel plasma cutting of up to 2-inch plate. Multiple oxy-fuel torches are available for thicker plate. “Downtime is expensive”, says Norm, adding, “You need high value added services. That pointed us to the Messer. We entertained many machines but the Messer allows us to lay a plate down, drill holes and cut to finished parts. The price of steel is the price of steel, and the market’s the market…it’s what you do in between that determines how many quarters you get to put into your jeans at the end of the day. We knew how to do it from our previous experience and that is to do it in one set-up.” Cleaning out kerf and slag is more than a nuisance when cutting plate at the thicknesses Xtreme handles. Banton notes that previously a machine could

Flame cutting of thick plates is handled by this multi-torch unit

Made in-house, these racks are drop in replacements. Combined with the Messer’s built in slag removal system, downtime is minimized

The Messer system allows complex cuts like this counterbore

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Xtreme handles big, thick plate and sources from major suppliers, including domestic mills.

be down for two days removing and replacing racking and cleaning the bed. “With the new machine, at the end of each day, you hit a button and a slagger system cleans out the entire 80-foot length. There’s no downtime. Tables are a simple lift-out setup. We have spares on hand; if an operator burns out one area ahead of others, it’s a simple job to replace it.”

Gerry echoes the efficiency theme: “We made the same parts before the Messer … the guys would load and handle the parts to load other machines as a secondary process.

Handling is huge. We had to get better to make better margins. And you can’t easily automate the process. If the machine’s not cutting, you’re not making money with it.”

For parts that require secondary machining, Xtreme has an in-house capability through ISS, although demand will drive Xtreme to purchase a machining centre soon, along with a brake. Growth has been exponential, and with rapid growth came the inevitable growing pains.

Norm says, “It’s nice to have a building and cranes and equipment, but you need credit to buy inventory. We had a service centre that gave us a $15,000 credit facility and by the end of week one we were at $60,000. We’ve grown to the point that we deal direct with the major mills … but we still have a great relationship with that

first supplier”. Gord identifies capital as a major factor going forward: “It’s about financing the growth. The busier we get, the more inventory we need and the bigger the working capital. We started off self-financing, but recently CIBC has stepped up.”

Xtreme currently employs 17, but the firm’s rapid growth has brought the inevitable need to address the labour issue. According to Norm, “we’ve gone through a number of people to get to the team we have now.

We’ve gone through 10 to keep 2. The team we have now are all ‘keepers’. As specific as we are about the job requirements, we get lots of applicants with mis-matched job skills. There’s a danger side to this industry. Most of what we do will kill you if it falls on you so it requires a safety mind set. We use a recruiting company. That costs money, but at the end of the day it draws out people from the industry. We’ll be hiring again soon. Since 2010 we’ve expanded twice.” In a soft market, Xtreme is prospering, in no small measure because of the enthusiasm the partners show for the business and the industry as a whole.

Norm Banton summarizes it succinctly: “I love coming to work. You make a decision and right, wrong or indifferent, you learn something every day. Xtreme Steel & Profiles is perfectly named. Everything we do is extreme.” CM

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This nail is 1.574 inches long ... for a large number of measurements a more automated measurement system would be used, but it’s possible to get the same results with simple handheld instruments.

What does “Sigma” really mean?

Six Sigma has come to mean a quality management process, but “sigma” is actually a useful measurement of the repeatability of a process.

By Jim Anderton, Editor ...........................................................................................................................................................................

W

ith the popularity of Six Sigma management principles, it’s common to find metalworking industry professionals, even quality professionals, who don’t know that the lowercase Greek symbol sigma (s) is actually at the core of all modern quality processes.

We know it’s important, but why? Here’s a very brief explanation of what it is and why it matters.

IT STARTS WITH A HISTOGRAM Take any single measured attribute, from the diameter of a machine shaft, to the weight of an orange; if you are measuring large numbers of that single attribute, there is a simple and powerful mathematical technique that’s the basis for quality metrics in production. As an example, consider the length of a simple mass-produced part, a nail. Nails are commonly wire-cut and have cold formed heads, so it’s reasonable that controlling the overall length is worthwhile both for customer satisfaction reasons and

as a cost control measure. Inspectors could use vernier calipers or micrometers to randomly check lengths, but unless the dimension falls consistently out of spec, it’s a judgment call about whether to take corrective action.

If we set up an inspection process that takes numerous length measurements however, it’s possible to do something very useful with those measurements.

Now imagine taking multiple length measurements, perhaps two or three hundred. Starting with our initial value of 1.574 inches, we could put each nail we measure into a cup labeled by length. The first nail would go into the 1.574 inch cup, the next might go into a cup labeled 1.569 inches, until we had a row of cups holding nails with a range of lengths.

Now the interesting part begins. If we draw a chart (which statisticians call a histogram) with the lengths taken from the labeled cups on the horizontal axis, and the number of nails in each cup on the vertical axis, we get a chart that looks like a collection of vertical bars.(see diagram)

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THE HISTOGRAM CREATES THE BELL CURVE

NAIL LENGTH HISTOGRAM

Number of Nails

Number of Nails

1.571

1.572

1.573 1.574

1.575 1.576

1.577 1.578

1.579

Length of Nails

Notice that most of the measurements are close to the 1.575 “bin” and the number of nails with longer or shorter lengths tails off as we go farther away from the centre.

Now imagine that we used a much higher resolution instrument than a vernier caliper and had hundreds of paper cups to make hundreds of closely-spaced columns on the horizontal axis. We could draw a line connecting the tops of the columns to get what mathemeticians call a “Gaussian distribution”, but we know as a ‘bell curve”.

We also know how many nails we have and the length of each so we can easily calculate the average length and note it on our bell curve chart. To make use of the bell curve, we can calculate something called the “standard deviation from the mean”, which is simply a measure of how many nails are a certain distance away from

1.571

1.572

1.573 1.574

1.575 1.576

1.577 1.578

1.579

Length of Nails

s = “sigma”

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“Notice that most of the measurements are close to the 1.575 “bin” and the number of nails with longer or shorter lengths tails off as we go farther away from the centre.”

method measures how repeatable your process is, not how accurate. It’s very possible to get a great six sigma distribution, but with all the parts out of spec. Sigma is the standard deviation from the average measurement, which is not necessarily the desired measurement!

If you use automated measuring in your production process, the numbers you need are already at your fingertips. Compared to conventional control charts, it’s a great way to visualize the variability of almost any production process. CM

the average length, which for our example is the tallest column in the histogram. The math isn’t important in this discussion, so we’ll jump to the answers. One “standard deviation”, which the mathematicians call “sigma” is a range that holds 68.3 per cent of all the nail lengths, both above and below the average length. A two sigma standard deviation includes 95.5 per cent of the nails, while a three sigma covers 99.7 per cent, almost all of them. Go out to the six sigma level and we’re including 99.9997 per cent of the nails.

From a production perspective, if the average nail length is your print spec and the upper and lower limits on nail length fall into the one sigma band, you’re making 68.3 per cent good parts and 31.7 per cent rejects. At the three sigma level, it’s 99.7 per cent good, so you’re rejecting only three parts for every 1000, which is pretty good. At the six sigma level, you’re almost perfect, with only three rejects in 100,000 nails produced, which is really excellent quality. The interesting thing about this kind of analysis is that it applies to any normal measurement of almost anything, from the diameter of reamed holes, to the height of Canadian kindergarden kids..for a normal population of measurements, the bell curve is always there. What makes “six sigma” the magic word in quality circles is that for most production processes, with 99.9997 per ISO 17025 ACCREDITED LAB cent of parts close to the average value, if the average is the same as your print spec, it essentially means “zero defects”.

There are two key “takeaways” from this concept. The first is that the bell curve isn’t something you can eliminate, it’s a natural law of nature. The idea is to make the curve tall and skinny so the six sigma level (or whatever level you need) 2433 Meadowvale Blvd., Mississauga, Ontario L5N 5S2 is as close to the average measurement as possible. The second point is that this Ph:905-819-7878 • Fax: 905-819-6886 • Toll Free: 1-800-606-9266

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Image by Cosme2c

A new way to drill Bouguenais, France-based MITIS has developed a novel vibration-assisted drilling technology: SINEHOLING

By Jim Anderton, Editor ....................................................................

P

eck drilling is a very old technique for clearing high L/D deep holes and is the only solution for many materials. Part of what makes pecking work is the ability to break long chips, reducing nesting and allowing free coolant flow into the cut to flush smaller chips. Taken to a much higher level, Bouguenais, Francebased MITIS has developed a novel vibration assisted drill technology the firm calls SineHoling. The process is more complex than it seems. Although researched in the 1950’s, development of a true industrial process began with a pHD student in energy mechanics, Grégoire Peigné. Starting at the end of year 2000, by 2004 he had developed the hardware to generate and control the low frequency vibrations that drive the process. In 2007, Peigné founded MITIS to market the invention, as well as the unique drilling engineering skills acquired during his research. A patent was granted in 2009, and in 2011, MITIS SAS won a major supply contract for the Airbus A350 program. At the start of 2012, MITIS SAS started developing a new “modular” CNC tool holder, compatible with the Graflex range marketed by Seco.

The Sineholing process creates a secondary axial motion in addition to the standard drilling motion of rotation

and feed. The secondary axial motion is adjustable in frequency and amplitude. The result is chip fracturing which can be controlled for optimal chip removal in continuous cutting. Aerospace is a natural fit for the process, where a large number of holes and counterbores allow per hole productivity improvements to aggregate into big cost savings. The MITIS technology works especially well with one-shot drilling, without pecking, and with a single tool, through multi-material stacks like titanium/CFRP/ aluminum, aluminum/carbon, and carbon/titanium. Use of coolants are reduced or eliminated completely. In the Airbus A350 program, about 60 per cent of automated drilling units are equipped with MITIS technology. www.mitis.fr

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High-Tech Holemaking

By Nate Hendley .....................................................................................................................................................................................

T

he process of machining holes is undergoing an evolution.

“Hole drilling got its start in the back of toolrooms, putting in start holes ... now it’s evolved into something used for production ... I wouldn’t say [this happened] overnight, but happened over the course of years,” says Ken Baeszler, product manager for GF AgieCharmilles.

“Not only [are hole drilling machines] more common in production—they’ve been used in the aerospace industry for a long time, and medical—they are also being used [today] for mold and die production, particularly with die plates,” adds Baeszler.

Trending on the horizon is the advent of Modulation Assisted Machining (MAM), which proponents say could become as common as CAM in manufacturing circles.

M4 Sciences Corporation of West Lafayette, Indiana, sells a patented, compact CNC lathe attachment called TriboMAM for drilling precision micro-scale holes.

“The TriboMAM drill system enables a new technology called Modulation Assisted Machining, where a lowfrequency oscillation is applied to the drilling process in the direction of the drill feed. This enables unmatched chip control, enhances effectiveness of cutting fluids and improves the stability of the drilling process,” explains James Mann, CEO of M4.

MAM “has the potential to become the way machining is done ... we believe it’s the way drilling should be done,” he adds.

Here’s a look at what’s new and/or noteworthy in the world of machine tools for drilling or boring holes:

GF AGIECHARMILLES GF AgieCharmilles officially introduced Drill 300, a high-precision CNC EDM drilling machine, last year. The company claims it will set new standards in terms of hole drilling.

Drill 300 “is not just designed to be a more capable hole popper. It’s designed to give you accurate, precise holes that have surface integrity,” says Baeszler.

The machine is available in three-axis, five-axis, and seven-axis versions, can run in lights out fashion and offers “three to four times less wear than other machines” while providing “very high speed on the drilling,” continues Baeszler.

Drill 300 excels at machining holes in electrically conductive material such as Inconel, titanium, steel, and carbide. It can handle a workpiece with dimensions (length, depth, height) of 1,000 mm x 700 mm x 500 mm and weighing up to 1,000 kilograms. X and Y travel comes to 600 x 400 mm, with Z travel at 450 mm (650 mm optional) and W travel at 450 mm. The machine’s dimensions (width, depth, height) are 1,400 mm (1,900 mm with tilting head) x 2,320 mm x 2,180 mm. The Drill 300 weighs 2,500 kilograms. www.gfac.com

The Drill 300 CNC EDM drilling machine from GF AgieCharmilles

FIVES MACHINING SYSTEMS Fives Machining Systems (formerly MAG) in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, has introduced a new, integrated contouring head for their horizontal boring mills in 1250 and 1600 mm table/pallet sizes and live-spindle HMCs in 800 to 1,600 mm pallet size.

The unique new contouring head boasts a standard tool interface (which reduces tooling costs) and loads tools via the machine’s automatic toolchanger for quick processing without operator involvement.

“The end user gets all the advantages of the boring mill,

for example, accurate machining at long spindle extensions, in conjunction with the capability provided by the contouring head,” says Peter J. Beyer, product strategy and development director, Fives Giddings & Lewis (one of the company’s brands).

“Eventually the integrated contouring head will be extended to other machine models—for example, floor type boring mills,” adds Beyer.

Asked what the head’s most notable feature is, he says, “I’m not sure that there is one ‘notable’ feature, but rather it’s the

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Fives Machining Systems’ new integrated contouring head, on a Giddings & Lewis RT1250U horizontal boring mill.

combination of the machine features that stand out. The end user gets full automation of the contouring head using nonproprietary tooling with built in counter-balance capability and all that in conjunction with the current robust machining capability of the boring mill main spindle … you get high pressure through the contouring head tool also.”

Beyer offers suggestions for ‘best practises’ for operators using the contouring head in conjunction with a boring mill or live-spindle HMC. “You cannot ignore the laws of physics. When planning the cutting operations with either spindle (main or contouring head) the end user should try to minimize tool extension to allow for maximum metal removal capability,” he says. www.fivesmsi.com

TOSHIBA

The new BTD-100.R10 horizontal boring and milling machine from Toshiba of Japan boasts a 900 x 950 mm table design (which increases versatility), an operator-friendly pendant to create seamless transitions between manual and automatic operations, and a 100 mm (4-inch) spindle with 50 taper driven by a 30kW (40hp) motor.

The machine itself is 2,900 mm (114.1 inches) tall with a 4,600 mm x 3,800 (181.1 x 149.6-inch) floor space and a weight of 14,000 kilos (30,800 pounds).

The machine features a cast-iron design and highly rigid

structure. Column design improves thermal stability and accuracy while twin Y-axis ball screws eliminate the counter balance increasing speed and accuracy.

The BTD-100.R10 has X, Y, Z and W-axis travels of 1,000 mm (39.3-inches), 900 mm (35.4-inches), 700 mm (27.5-inches) and 350 mm (13.7-inches). Spindle diameter is 100 mm (3.9-inches) while maximum tool length is 400 mm (15.7-inches) and maximum tool mass is 25 kilos (55 pounds). www.toshiba-machine.com

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DMG MORI SEIKI

DMG Mori Seiki’s new Dixi 270 precision portal milling centre

DMG Mori Seiki introduced the Dixi 270 precision portal milling centre at EMO in Hannover, Germany.

The Dixi 270 boasts a large work area of 2,700 mm x 2,700 mm x 1,600 mm (X x Y x Z). A highly precise portal machine, the Dixi 270 has 3-point support and offers excellent rigidity and stability for complex machining. The milling centre can rough-machine heavy components up to 3,000 mm in diameter, 1,600 mm in height and weighing 12,000 kilograms in one set-up.

“One of the most notable features [of the Dixi 270] is that productivity has not been compromised to achieve the remarkable accuracy. The 77kW spindle can drill or rough bore at high material removal rates,” says Greg Hyatt, senior vice-president and CTO at DMG Mori Seiki’s U.S. headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

“It is also notable that the high accuracy is not limited to the orthogonal axes, but is realized in the rotary axes as well. This allows precise location of bores on the most complex 5-axis applications. It is also critical when concentric bores cannot be machined from one side of the part and the rotary axes are required to almost perfectly reposition the part and machine from the opposite side,” he continues. www.dmgmori-usa.com

FEELER FEELER FBM-Series Moving Column Horizontal Boring Mills are enhanced with extensive design and engineering by their North American supplier, Methods Machine Tools, Inc. (Sudbury, Massachusetts U.S.A.).

Designed for ultra-high precision machining of large components, these mills are equipped with Heidenhain linear scales on the X, Y and Z-axes. The FBM-Series comes with either a 4.3 inch (110mm) or 5 inch (130mm) quill, and a W-Axis with 27.6 inch (700mm) of travel.

The FBM-Series includes four models all of which have a moving column (Z-Axis) T-type base. The FBM-110/130-Series Horizontal Boring Mills have a fixed table with a maximum table load ranging from 13,200 lbs. (6,000 kg) to 26,400 lbs. (12,000 kg). The FBM-110R/130R-Series of Horizontal Boring Mills feature a built-in, fully programmable rotary table with a maximum capacity of 33,000 pounds (15,000kg). The rotary table is available in 55 inch (1,400mm) x 63 inch (1,600mm) or 79 inch (2,000mm) x 71 inch (1,800mm) sizes.

FEELER boring mills are offered with a 50-Taper 35 HP spindle with speeds of 2,500 rpm or 2,000 rpm. The FBM110

FEELER FBM-Series Moving Column Horizontal Boring Mill

and 110R have X and Y-Axis boxway construction with a Z-Axis featuring three Schneeberger roller guideways. The FBM130 and 130R offers three Schneeberger roller guideways on the X and Z-Axis with boxway construction on the Y-Axis. FEELER Boring Mills feature travel ranging from 98 inch (2,500mm) to 165 inch (4,200mm) on the X-Axis and 71 inch (1,800mm) to 118 inch (3,000mm) on the Y-Axis. Z-Axis (column) travel is 67 inch (1,700mm). The boring mills feature a FANUC 31i control.

“Notable features of the FEELER mills include a full forth axis and Heidenhain glass scales for excellent repeatability,” says Dale Hedberg, FEELER Product Manager, Methods Machine Tools.

www.methodsmachine.com

M4 SCIENCES CORPORATION M4 Sciences Corporation has sold its TriboMAM drill system in 11 countries, though not Canada yet.

Essentially a miniature machine tool, the TriboMAM drill system consists of a Piezoelectric driven compact CNC lathe attachment (which looks like a large AA battery) that is installed into a lathe or machining centre. Once the TriboMAM drill system is operational “it’s able to control the motion of the tool ... it superimposes oscillation onto the tool,” says Mann.

The end-result is greatly enhanced productivity; the machine tool the TriboMAM system takes up residence in should be able to drill holes “up to five times faster” and “at the same time, improve the tool wear,” claims Mann. ... continues on page 72

The TriboMAM-Live drilling system from M4 Sciences Corporation

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A New Standard of Excellence.

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For over a century we have been supporting our customers with the finest products, service and technical expertise. Our Gold Series offering is designed for use in stainless steels and structural alloy steels. Our Platinum Series offering is designed for use in high temperature nickel alloys and titanium alloys.

Whether your manufacturing needs call for a standard tap, high performance tap, special geometry, special or standard end mill, we can meet all of your round cutting tool needs.

Please call us and let us show you why Brubaker has remained a leading supplier to industries for over 130 years.

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... continued from page 70

While theoretically, it could work in non-CNC equipment the current customer base for the TriboMAM drill system all use CNC machines.

TriboMAM drill family includes five different models that range from small (the TriboMAM Micro, which drills holes ranging from 0.2 mm to 2 mm in diameter) to large (TriboMAM Mega², which drills hole 5 – 12 mm in diameter).

The TriboMAM drill system can be used with difficult-to-machine materials such as copper, aluminum, steel, cast iron, cobalt chrome, stainless steel, and titanium.

M4 has recently introduced a rotating TriboMAM Live drilling system “that can be installed into a main [rotating] spindle,” says Mann. www.M4Sciences.com The TriboMAM drilling system with programmable controller

OKUMA

Okuma’s MU-6300V five-axis vertical machining centre

Okuma America Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, released the MU-6300V five-axis vertical machining centre earlier this year.

Designed for high efficiency and productivity, the MU-6300V boasts a rigid and accurate double column structure and low centre of gravity in workpiece movement (trunnion table) that enables heavy duty cutting and high-speed finishing. The MU-6300V’s table size is 630 mm (24.80 inches), spindle speed is 10,000 min¹ and magazine capacity is 32 tools (48 and 100 optional).

“This machine has a 50 taper spindle, which makes it a more rigid platform for heavy duty drilling. Maximum tool length is 15.75-inches, which allows for deep hole drilling. With this machine we also have the ability to tilt and rotate the part to drill holes in virtually any shape parts, making it very versatile. This also makes it ideal for industries such as aerospace,” says Chris Davala, applications engineer at Okuma. www.okuma.com

GMN USA GMN USA in Farmington, Connecticut, repairs and makes spindles for hole drilling and other applications.

“We have supplied a number of spindles for specific drilling applications. The operations span a wide variety of products, including automotive, aerospace, medical and armament industries,” says Gary Quirion, president of GMN USA.

“The machine type will influence spindle design features.

For example, a gun drill application will utilize high pressure through shaft coolant to assist with chip removal, whereas an aerospace drilling application will typically use MQL (minimum quantity lubrication) to prevent contamination of composite/CFRP structures. Some aerospace drilling applications are completed in environments where coolant or lubrication leakage cannot be tolerated. Special spindle designs that incorporate forced air

GMN makes and repairs spindles for hole drilling and other applications

motor cooling, grease bearing lubrication and air tool unclamp systems greatly reduce the risk of contaminating composite structures,” adds Quirion. www.gmnusa.com

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Thread Milling Faster Taps the Big Thing in the Tapping and Threading Sector

By Nate Hendley .....................................................................................................................................................................................

I

ndustry experts cite rigid tapping as a growing trend in tapping and threading circles, and urge shops to look to the oil sector for work.

“While not necessarily a new trend, rigid tapping is growing at an exponential rate as customers see the value of solid systems, and the resultant benefit in tool performance and tool life,” says Dave Miskinis, senior application engineer, technical development at WIDIA in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

“Will thread milling continue to be a growth segment?

It will, especially when customers realize the potential for improved thread quality,” echoes Patrick Nehls, product manager, Walter USA in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

“Thread milling is a growing sector in the industry. The advantage with thread milling is you have infinite control over your chip load per tooth. In certain cases this can help solve problems, such as torn threads. Also, this is an advantage when threading very hard materials, over 50Rc. Most CNC’s today have canned thread milling cycles, eliminating the need for writing a program. The disadvantage with thread milling is it is generally a slower process, and you are limited on your depth/diameter ratio. It becomes difficult to thread mill when your tap depth is over two times your diameter. Although thread milling is a growing sector, it is limited for these reasons,” adds Mike McGee, technical sales engineer taps and threading, at Brubaker Tool in Millersburg, Pennsylvania.

“Thread milling continues to grow, particularly in small lot production, or when there is a need or desire for versatility and for expensive parts where a broken tap left in a part is problematic. There is also growing use of multi-function tools, i.e. thread-chamfer, drill-thread-

chamfer. A very interesting tool is one that mills the hole and thread simultaneously. I must add however, while all these reduce the number of tool changes, ultimately tapping is still faster than thread milling for high volume production, so there is a place for both,” adds Miskinis.

Indeed, faster tapping—something Canadian Metalworking has called “the Holy Grail of machining”—is definitely top-of-mind.

“We see the need to tap faster and faster every year.

More machine tools are offering rigid tapping cycles with high rpm limits,” says Alan Miller, engineering manager at Big Kaiser Precision Tooling in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Shops that offer tapping and threading services are advised to seek work in North America’s burgeoning oil industry.

“Right now, there’s a tremendous amount of drilling going on … oil rigs are popping up everywhere around the U.S. [and Canada],” says Don Halas, product manager for threading and grooving at Seco Tools, in Troy, Michigan.

“The oil and gas industry requires highly secure, predictable machining processes for accurate threads in demanding materials such as chromoly steels, stainless and nickel alloys … between the hostile conditions in oil and gas environments that put high demands on equipment, and the catastrophic outcomes that can result from minute discrepancies in production, precision manufacturing is essential. Part failure is not an option, because it can jeopardize an entire operation,” adds Mark Hatch, product director of taps and thread mills at Emuge Corp, in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Here’s a look at what’s new and/or noteworthy in tapping and threading:

SECO Seco has released a new cermet grade—TP1030—for surface critical applications.

The TP1030 grade is designed to offer consistently reliable, top-quality thread turning in high-volume production situations.

It has a nanolaminate PVD coating, and is offered in an S-type insert to produce a uniform profile edgeline.

Asked to cite the main benefits of TP1030, Halas says, “The

key one is superior finish, achieved by using cermet threading inserts... [it also] maintains tight tolerances, which is important for gaging... the main applications are steel, stainless steel and powdered metal materials… you can run it faster than the carbide grades but on the other hand it works in low speed as well.” www.secotools.com

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WALTER Walter recently released the Prototyp Paradur Short Chip HT blind hole tap which can boost process reliability and quality when tapping long-chipping high tensile (HT) strength steels.

Tapping—particularly blind hole tapping of long-chipping, high-strength materials—can produce coiled swarf, which can damage the tap and halt work.

The Prototyp Paradur Short Chip HT is designed to prevent such ‘bird nesting’ from occurring. The tap has a 15 degree helix angle for easy chip removal when doing deep (i.e. 3.5 x d) and protected threads. This goes down to a 9-degree helix angle which, combined with a ground rake in the chamfer, results in short chips. Axial internal cooling rinses these chips out of the hole through spiral flutes. On top of this, the cutting edges

WIDIA PRODUCTS GROUP The new VariTap was introduced to the world at EMO in Hannover, Germany.

“Like its highly successful cousins, VariDrill and VariMill, VariTap’s patented design provides high performance in a variety of materials. This versatility will appeal to both small job shops, and larger production shops, allowing them to inventory one tap for the vast majority of applications they may encounter,” says Miskinis.

The new tap is sold under the WIDIA-GTD (Greenfield Tap & Die) brand name, The new VariTap, a part of the Widia portfolio which is in the WIDIA portfolio. The VariTap is made with high vanadium HSS-E, which offers improved wear resistance leading to longer tool life.

“VariTap works very well in stainless steel, producing up to three times the number of holes of comparable taps… due to its geometry, VariTap is also outstanding in the soft materials found in the vast majority of tapping applications,” says Miskinis.

VariTap can be used with CNC machines, screw machines, rotary index machines, secondary tapping units and dedicated tapping machines. www.widia.com

have an adjusted rake angle.

The end-result is that the Prototyp Paradur Short Chip HT blind hole tap can slash machine downtime and tool costs (thanks to longer tool life) while producing clean, chip-free threads. The Paradur Short Chip HT can be used on both high-tensile long chipping materials and low-tensile strength materials such as aluminum alloys or ductile cast iron.

“Chip control and threading is really a focus for us. What can we do to break up the chip and minimize ‘bird nesting’?” says Nehls. www.walter-tools.com/us

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BIG KAISER Big Kaiser has introduced the MGT3 program for micro taps and the MGT36 program for large taps as part of the Mega Synchro Tapping Holder program.

Both are designed for rigid tapping.

“The new MGT3 and MGT36 sizes expand on the current range of Mega Synchro holders. They offer the same advantages (tap security, tap life, thread Big Kaiser’s new MGT3 tapping holder quality) but use different clamping concepts to accommodate the larger and smaller shanks. The MGT3 uses our Mega Micro collet program while the MGT36 uses set screws to hold both the shank and square,” says Miller.

“The MGT36 is offered as an integral unit with a steep taper (CAT50 or BT50), HSK-A100, and our Kaiser modular KA7 connection. The MGT3 is only offered with a BT30 taper or a straight shank. This straight shank MGT3 version can be used in larger tapers as well as turning centers,” adds Miller. www.bigkaiser.com Big Kaiser’s new MGT36 tapping holder

EMUGE Emuge recently introduced a new thread milling program for oil and gas-related manufacturing applications that includes solid carbide thread mills, and insert thread milling systems.

“The new Emuge Solid Carbide Thread Mills feature a unique left hand spiral flute design, increased flute count and core diameter, and advanced multilayered TiALN-T46 coating. The combined effect of the new design features is exceptionally high feed rates,

reduced cycle times, vibration-free machining, reduced tool wear and excellent thread surface finishes …these thread mills are also capable of machining multiple thread sizes with one tool. The new Solid Carbide Thread Mill program includes 20 in-stock tools, available in inch and metric shanks, in a complete range of thread form/sizes,” says Hatch.

Emuge’s new indexable insert thread milling program meanwhile, “includes a full range of tool bodies and inserts

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structural steels, aluminum, copper, and brass. Our goal is to provide the customer with a high-performance tap that they can use in a variety of ductile materials,” says McGee. “Our Platinum series taps have been on the market for a little over a year now. They are material specific taps designed for high nickel materials (Nickel Alloy Series) such as 718 Inconel and titanium alloys (Titanium Alloy Series),” he continues. www.talbotholdings.com

EW

for vibration-free machining of large threads. New Emuge Insert Thread Milling Systems feature a full range of uniquely designed insert and tool bar bodies. Inserts have four usable cutting edges for long tool life and maximum cutting efficiency and are available in Acme, Stub Acme, NPT and API LP design specifications.

Advanced NPT and API LP full and partial profile insert New Emuge Solid Carbide Thread Mills for Oil & Gas Manufacturing technology enhances the versatility and economy of the Emuge system. Precision ground rake and relief angles allow for high chip-per-tooth load for increased productivity,” continues Hatch. www.emuge.com

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Energize your Oil & Gas Threading Productivity…

BRUBAKER Brubaker Tool recently launched a DIN/ANSI version of their Gold series taps as well as a Platinum series of taps. “[The DIN/ANSI taps] taps have the same thread geometry as our Gold series taps, and are manufactured using the same high vanadium premium substrate. The difference is the extra DIN length.

This hybrid blank incorporates the DIN European blank spec with the ANSI imperial shank and square spec. For example, an M10 x 1.5 DIN/ANSI tap will have a .381inch shank/.286-inch square, but instead of being 2.94-inch OAL (ANSI spec.), it will be Brubaker Tool’s new DIN/ 100mm OAL. This alANSI version of their Gold series taps lows companies to use their existing Imperial tap collets, while allowing for a longer tap. It is a popular option in Canada,” says McGee. “We are also developing a new line of GOLD taps designed for machining soft materials, such as low carbon steels,

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THE BUSINESS OF TOOLING

High-feed milling, tips and tricks

By John Mitchell, General Manager of Tungaloy Canada .....................................................................................................

H

igh-feed milling has revolutionized milling applications today. High-feed milling works from a chip thinning principle using the lead angle of the cutter.

A 90 degree cutter will produce an average chip thickness of the programmed feed rate. When you program a feed rate of 0.010 inch per tooth the average chip thickness will be 0.010 inch. In a 45 degree lead cutter the average chip thickness is about 70 per cent of the programmed chip per tooth. In High-feed milling the average chip thickness is about 15% of the programmed feed per tooth.

Therefore a programmed feed rate of 0.060 inch per tooth will generate an average chip thickness of only 0.009 inch.

The lead angle also has a major effect on the cutting forces. With a 90 degree cutter the cutting forces act perpendicular to the spindle. The net result is the forces are trying to push the spindle and or part away. This is very hard on the spindle. The tool should extend from the spindle the minimum amount to avoid deflection.

John Mitchell, General Manager

of Tungaloy Canada A 45 degree lead cutter will have the cutting forces act at 45 degrees to the spindle and the part. This is an improvement, however care should be taken when machining a thin part as the forces may try to push down on the part and cause â&#x20AC;&#x153;oil canningâ&#x20AC;?. Oil canning is where the cutter pushes the workpiece down and the material springs back after the cutter passes. With high-feed milling the cutting forces act almost parallel with the spindle. Since the cutting forces are directed back up into the spindle it is easier on the machines spindle and the cutter can be run at extended lengths.

High-feed milling is a very versatile way to remove material. The tool can ramp and interpolate. Unlike many other types of milling, this means the tool never has to leave the part. The tool can simply be ramped down to the next level while continuing to mill. Since the tool is never lifted from the part, it reduces the probability of re-cutting

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THE BUSINESS OF TOOLING a chip and breaking an insert. High-feed milling is now commonly used for hole making. High-feed milling is about six times faster than drilling and one tool is capable of producing numerous size holes, reducing cycle time to index to different drill diameters, reducing the cost of the additional tools and reducing tool inventories.

Care should be taken when selecting the size of the high-feed cutter. Often programs use very short “jerky” motions when creating its tool path. When these short jerky motions occur it is often difficult for the machine to ramp up to the desired feed rate. For example a three inch diameter cutter may be programmed to run at 300 inches per minute but since the short jerky movements don’t allow enough travel for the machine to reach this speed the cutter may only average forty inches per minute.

Whereas a one inch diameter cutter may reach the 300 inches per minute of feed rate since its tool path is longer.

Although the one inch diameter cutter has three times the distance to travel it is doing so seven and a half times faster, making the one-inch cutter much faster than the three-inch cutter.

Many CNC controls today have a safety feature that limits the maximum feed rate. Many shops put in a new high-feed cutter, program the feed rate for 250 inches

per minute or more and have the false sense that they are running faster yet are not because the maximum feed rate is set to 150 inches per minute.

A new trend in high-feed milling is the use of rectangular inserts. The benefit of this style of insert is that it does not take up as much space in the cutter body as would a trigon or square type of insert. This means the cutter body can have a higher density of inserts per diameter.

Some cutting tool manufacturers have cutter bodies with fiveinserts in a one inch diameter or 10 inserts in a two-inch diameter. With a chip per tooth of 0.060”, five effective cutting edges and elevated RPM due to the small one inch diameter the tool is easily capable of running at feeds exceeding 600 or 700 inches per minute.

With metal removal rates as high as that the cutting forces produced are tremendous, some cutting tool manufacturers have opted to build a big bulky insert to prevent insert failure. While this may offer some shock resistance, it limits the amount of effective teeth, thereby slowing the process. Other manufacturers have opted to make their high-feed inserts much more positive and reduces the cutting forces which maintains super high-feed rates, reduces cutting forces and is easier on the machine’s spindle. www.tungaloy.co.jp/ca

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TOOL TALK

A new cycle:

Student Day hits CMTS 2013 Students gathered at the International Centre in Toronto to learn about careers in the trades.

By Nick Healey ...................................................................................................................................................................................................

Two students visit a booth at CMTS 2013.

TORONTO — Since their origin, trade shows have had an obvious end game – to showcase goods, and have them bought.

But at this year’s iteration of CMTS (Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show), there was more than just new machinery and equipment being hawked.

Throughout the event there was a noticeable undercurrent driving the conversations amongst the attendees. There was a tangible feeling that manufacturing is vital to Canada, and this industry needs attention – not just now, but well into the future.

The challenges are obvious, and have been for some time.

An ageing workforce, coupled with a lack of incoming workers is going to make for a very hollow manufacturing base in the future. Unless, of course, something changes.

That’s where Student Day comes in.

On Thursday, October 3, the final day of the show, students from both high schools and colleges were invited to The International Centre in Toronto to see firsthand some of the equipment they could be working with once they enter the workforce.

And not only that, but the day also aimed to educate students about what sort of possibilities existed beyond simply working on the shop floor.

Like any profession, manufacturing has a lot of opportunity for growth – an idea that often gets lost on people considering a career in the field.

Shaun Thorson, the CEO of Skills Canada, spoke to the audience of students gathered at the show.

“There’s great opportunity in skilled trades careers,”

Joe Poulin of Hurco Canada introduces his “Cycle Start” series, which was created to educate young people about careers in machining.

JoAnn Mitchell of Sandvik, and Joe Poulin address a crowd of students.

he said. “There’s a lot of great things you can do in the manufacturing industry, and you’re really only being held back by your own vision, and passion that you decide to put into it, or not put into it.”

Following Thorson’s message, Joe Poulin, sales manager for Hurco Canada, presented his “Cycle Start” project, a video series that will detail the life of a machinist.

There’s no doubt the unique video, with a machining demonstration set to a hip-hop track in the background, caught the attention of the younger audience.

“I wanted to create a reality show for machinists so people understand, so people get inspired,” Poulin said.

“You start with a trade, whatever it is, there’s a lot of direction you take. Whether it’s an applications guy with a machine tool company… whether it’s a foreman in a shop – maybe some of you will own a shop one day.

“There are so many other (paths) you can take other than just working a trade.”

Duane Henry, who studies precision machining at Georgian College, summed up the event.

“It was great,” he said. “I saw a lot. I liked all the CNC machines.”

Although, Henry couldn’t quite manage to escape the overwhelming presence of this year’s show, which was spread across the International Centre’s five halls.

“There wasn’t enough time to see all the stuff – it’s a lot!”

The presentation also ended on a particularly high note, with two students winning a draw, and going home with new iPads. CM

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TOOL TALK

Sandvik acquires remaining shares in Precorp Inc. work even more integrated to generate innovative solutions for SANDVIKEN, Sweden – Sandvik AB, the parent company of our customers.” CM cutting tool firm Sandvik Coromant, has reached an agreement to acquire an additional 51 per cent of shares in Precorp Inc., a company based in Spanish Fork, Utah.

The acquisition will give Sandvik will ownership of the comapny, and expected to be concluded by October 1, 2013. The Swedish comapany has been the minority owner of Precorp since 2008 with 49 per cent of the shares. After the sale Precorp will be consolidated into Sandvik Machining Solutions.

Precorp was founded in 1986 and offers a full line of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD) and carbide tools including drills, reamers, end mills, port tools, and micro tools for high-speed machining of die cast aluminum, carbide parts, and machining advanced composite materials. The company primarily serves customers in the aerospace and automotive segments.

In 2012 Precorp had sales of (MRW) approximately $37 million, and employed High Efficiency 8-Edge Radius Cutter roughly 200 people.

“The already existing co-operation Higher Stability between Sandvik Machining Solutions and with flat lock structure Precorp has led to several new business Lower Cutting Costs opportunities. The acquisition of the with economical 8-edged inserts Grades! remaining shares in Precorp is a logical Lower Cutting Forces step, and is in line with Sandvik’s long-term with Kyocera’s helical cutting CA6535 (CVD) strategy to have full ownership of core Difficult-to-cut Materials edge design assets,” says Jonas Gustavsson, President of Sandvik Machining Solutions.

(PVD) “Through the acquisition, we intend to Stainless Steel further develop and strengthen the global business for engineered special diamond and cemented carbide based cutting tools, particularly in the attractive aerospace segment.”

Richard Garrick, President of Precorp Inc, said in a statement, “I am confident that this acquisition is a good step, both for Sandvik Scan for Scan for and for Precorp. c o n n e c t w i t h u s Video Brochure “Precorp’s long-term strategy for growth in the aerospace segment is in line with Sandvik’s strategy and now we will K yoc e r a I n du s t r i a l Ce r a mi c s Co r p .

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TOOL TALK

CTMA hold 2013 annual general meeting in Ingersoll Harry Moser, founder of the U.S. Reshoring Initiative, was the keynote speaker at the event.

By Jim Anderton ................................................................................................................................................................................................

CTMA President David Glover, of Harbour Technologies Ltd., with Harry Moser, founder of The Reshoring Initiative. Moser updated a full audience on the status of manufacturing in North America today.

T

he Canadian Tooling & Machining Association (CTMA) held their annual general meeting on September 18th at the Elm Hurst Inn in Ingersoll, Ontario.

Chaired by Schmoltz+Bickenbach’s Ted Callighen, the meeting covered annual Board duties and presented a talk by Harry Moser, founder of the U.S. Reshoring Initiative.

The talk described how Canadian firms can follow the U.S. lead in winning back manufacturing jobs from low labour cost jurisdictions. Moser described how true production costing reveals that reshored products are often very competitive with offshore competition.

He also addressed the government incentives issue directly, stating, “Over 10 or 15 years incentives aren’t very important.

Incentives are really about ‘Am I going to Alabama or Georgia?’, not ‘Am I coming back from China’”.

Also on the program was an introduction to the Original Equipment Suppliers Association Tooling Forum, presented by former CTMA president Jamie Bowman of J.P. Bowman Limited.

The OESA Tooling Forum is a quarterly meeting of independent OEM mold, tool and fixture suppliers.

“It’s not a tool and mold association like the work the CTMA does”, said Bowman, adding, “We work with the associations.

We’re working on a guideline of best practices for the tool and mold sector. Issues include payment terms and managing collections, benchmarking, OEM relationship development and skills training.”

Apprentice bursary awards were also presented, followed by cocktails and dinner in the Inn’s grand ballroom. CM

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TOOL TALK

KOMET announces first Canadian partnership at CMTS 2013

C

astelar Tool of Mississauga, Ontario has joined KOMET’s network as the first Canadian partner.

Established in 1972, Castelar Tool specializes in the manufacture and re-grinding of solid carbide, carbide-tipped and HSS rotary cutting tools used in the automotive and aerospace industries among others.

Combined with their unique expertise, the support, training and technology transfer of the KOMET SERVICE platform will provide Castelar Tool the means to expand their service portfolio and to branch out to new markets.

The KOMET SERVICE Partners offer customers everything under one roof: the possibility to get KOMET tools, as well as tools of other brands refurbished and re-coated, access standard and simple special carbide tools, and the expert field support that they have come to expect from KOMET. “The KOMET GROUP is putting another PLUS from our TOOLS PLUS IDEAS philosophy into practice” says Thomas Whennen, Manager of KOMET SERVICE for North America.

Renato Evola, President, Castelar Tool (left) and Tom Whennen, Manager, KOMET SERVICE for North America.

(Photo: Komet)

KOMET SERVICE currently counts 17 partners in five European countries, four partners in the United States that have joined the network since the beginning of 2013, and now a first Canadian partner.

“These partnerships allow current KOMET customers to experience an enhanced level of service and support from KOMET, represent a growth opportunity for our partners through an expansion of their product and service portfolio, and enhance KOMET’s brand presence and customer proximity in North America through an extensive network of local partners,” adds Mr. Whennen. www.komet.com

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TOOL TALK

Canadian Measurement and Metrology hosts ‘Knowledge Tour 2013’

By Jim Anderton ................................................................................................................................................................................................

Canadian Measurement and Metrology founder and CEO Elliott Foster opens Technology Days 2013. (Photo: Jim Anderton/Canadian Metalworking)

Attendees at Technology Days 2013 are motivated, here learning PC-DIMS tips relevant to their CMM operations. (Photo: Jim Anderton/Canadian Metalworking)

Demonstrations on actual parts were presented, with large screens magnifying the action.

CMM’s large coordinate measuring equipment was also on display.

C

anadian Measurement and Metrology hosted their Knowledge Tour 2013 event on September 18, at the firm’s Mississauga, Ontario headquarters.

The invitation-only event was full, with over 80 attendees taking part in multiple seminars on a wide variety of advanced measuring technologies.

The morning session was a PC-DMIS user forum presented

by senior application engineer Grant Sewell, which was followed by sessions on multi-sensor measurement, shop floor metrology with Leica and Romer equipment, and a scanning face-off between white light and laser technologies.

A networking session took place, and prizes were offered, including a gift card for Lionhead Golf and Country Club, and iPod Shuffles.

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TOOL TALK

Methods Machine Tools announces new dealer for western Canada M

ethods Machine Tools Inc. has appointed Edge Production Supplies Ltd. (Edmonton, Alberta - Canada) as distributor in Western Canada including Alberta and British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In addition to their Edmonton corporate headquarters, Edge Production Supplies has offices in Calgary, Alberta and Surrey, British Columbia. Edge Production Supplies will represent Methods for FEELER High Performance Machining Centers, FANUC EDM Systems and KIWA-Japan Horizontal Machining Centers from all of their locations, and will also offer FANUC RoboDrill Vertical Machining Centers from their Edmonton and Calgary offices.

“We are pleased to add Edge Production Supplies to our Canadian distributor network,” said Mr. Dave Lucius, Vice President of Sales for Methods Machine Tools, Inc. “As a Methods Machine Tools’ dealer, we are ideally positioned to provide our customers with the latest in precision machine tool innovation and technology.

We look forward to a long and mutually rewarding association with Methods,” said Mr. Jim Spady, President of Edge Production Supplies Ltd. Edge Production Supplies Ltd. was founded in 2000 under the principle to bring the most innovative products and the highest level of service to the machining industry. They provide customers the opportunity to maximize their production and ultimately their profitability. Executives include Mr. Jim Spady, President and Mr. Todd Hiebert, Vice President. www.edgeproduction.com www.methodsmachine.com

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TOOL TALK NEXT GENERATION OF MILLING CUTTERS FOR ALUMINIUM & NON-FERROUS MATERIAL For highly productive machining of aluminium alloys and nonferrous materials, the Tungaloy Corporation has now launched its new Tung-AluMill Series of milling cutters. The new high speed range of milling cutters has been developed primarily for applications such as shoulder milling, high helical ramping and interpolation, straight ramping, and step milling operations.

Capable of increasing productivity by over 30%, the new Tung-AluMill series achieves this with a multitude of new innovations. The cutter body incorporates a new insert pocket with a V-bottom clamping design that works in synergy with the new insert geometries to permit highly productive machining at cutting speeds of up to 5000 m/min and allows higher ramping capabilities. The new V-shaped bottom design of the Tung-AluMill delivers a counter-force against cutting forces and centrifugal force to guarantee that insert movement and vibration is completely eliminated.

The secure pocket design has a simplified screw design

SOLUTIONS TO PUSH OR PULL HEAVY LOADS

for improved insert clamping. With a two-faced radial contact and wide axial support, the Tung-AluMill delivers precision 90 degree milling. The inserts with a polished rake face, fully ground periphery, high relief angle and wiper edge ensure that chip adhesion is eliminated. The Tung-AluMill insert range is available in Tungaloyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TH10 grade with the AJ chipbreaker designation. This combination enables the series to machine aluminium alloys, copper alloys, and a wide range of nonferrous materials. www.tungaloy.co.jp/ca/

HIGH PERFORMANCE TURNING FOR CAST IRON

Sumitomo Electric Carbideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s BN7000 Grade possesses CBN particles that are densely sintered for the maximum CBN content possible, resulting in high wear and breakage resistance. The strength of CBN particles provides chipping resistance which ensures stable performance and long tool life in high-efficiency machining of cast iron. It also offers excellent wear and thermal crack resistance in high speed machining of grey cast iron. Multi-tip inserts result in a more cost effective solution for the customer. The BN7000 offers machining stability through three edge preparations that optimize cast iron applications. Along with the standard edge preparation, the BN7500 is available in LF (sharper) and HS (stronger). www.sumicarbide.com.

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NEW 5-AXIS MACHINING CENTER BRINGS SUSTAINED ACCURACY TO LARGE PART PRODUCTION

Makino has announced the newest addition to its family of 5-axis vertical machining centers, the D800Z. Joining the Makino D-Series (D300 and D500), the D800Z is designed for high-performance job shops, precision parts machining, die/mold and aerospace applications. Like the other two D-Series machines, the D800Z offers easy access to the spindle and table, a highly rigid structure for responsive cutting, outstanding surface finishes and optional automation devices. Workpieces of up to 1,000mm in diameter and 1,200kg in weight can be machined in five axes, with great efficiency

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TOOL TALK and fewer operations for reduced production time. The 5-axis capability of the D800Z can be utilized in five-face milling mode to minimize setup, maximizing access to complex, multisided parts and reducing cycle times, or to address the demanding angular, blending, matching, fine-surface finishes and 3-D accuracy requirements of die-and-mold components. Also featured on the D800Z is Makino’s proprietary, next-generation Super Geometric Intelligence (SGI.4) software. SGI.4 helps

head is correctly tightened and helps to not overstress the clamping. The conical portion is shaped to provide best runout. Pre-loaded taper and flange contacts provide an optimized modular connection with extreme rigidity and strength. These new extensions meet the requirements for long reach in large machining centres in the diameter range of 0.394–1.26 inch (10–32 mm) for milling and 0.039–1.42 inch (1–36 mm) for boring. www. sandvik.coromant.com

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Cost Savings

provide the lowest cycle times and costs achievable by reducing machining cycle times on dies, complex cavities and cores, and aerospace parts by as much as 40 percent, when compared to most other control technologies. www.makino.com.

The Series 33 uses the latest in engineering design and grinding capabilities to handle aggressive ramping, pocketing and slotting of difficult materials such as Stainless Steel, Titanium, and Inconel*

GREATER FLEXIBILITY FROM NEW HEADS, CUTTERS AND INTEGRATED TOOL HOLDERS WITH EXCHANGEABLE HEAD COUPLING Sandvik Coromant’s exchangeable-head (EH) system has expanded to include a wide assortment of solid carbide heads, indexable milling cutters, boring heads,

* SGS helped a machining company GAIN twice the material removal rate, while REDUCING the total job cost by over

50%

DEFINING HIGH PERFORMANCE integrated machine adaptors and different shanks. The exchangeable head coupling is based on a self-centering screw thread for secure mounting and maximum strength and security. The coupling has a physical stop which makes it easy to feel when the

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www.sgstool.com 330-686-5700 Manufactured in the USA

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Super Cold? No Problem A new casting steel increase very low temperature strength

By Jim Anderton, editor ............................................................................................................................................................................

S

teels used in the low temperature range — down to –196 °C, face a major performance challenge.

To date, austenitic steels have been used. However, because of their low yield strength, these are subject

to the risk of early deformation and must therefore be cast with very thick walls. This was the starting point for the development of the new low-temperature material DUX CRYO, which displays significantly higher strength values with good toughness. The advantage is the ability to cast parts with thinner walls, which saves not only on weight but also on costs.

Instead of austenitic steel, SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH GUSS has recently started using martensitic steels for jobs in the lowtemperature range – this is the result of an extensive research project funded by the German federal ministry of economics and technology. These materials are excellent for tempering and also display significantly higher yield strength (Rp0.2 ≥ 490 N/mm²) than austenitic steel alternatives — a property particularly advantageous in such extreme temperatures.

However, demands are placed not only on the strength but also on the toughness (KV (–196°C) ≥ 40 J).

The prerequisite for high strength at low temperatures is primarily a low content of selected trace elements.

Otherwise, the segregations caused can result in embrittlement of the casting. “For us, the challenge lay in achieving reliable manufacture of the castings with a focus on optimised structure and therefore adequate strength — without cracks appearing in the casting volume,” says Dr. Petra Becker, head of research & development at SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH GUSS.

Cryogens like liquid oxygen and nitrogen embrittle standard steel grades, complicating the part design process for very cold applications

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Want to grow your market share? Gain exposure and get face-to-face with decision makers from Quebecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s manufacturing industry by exhibiting at MMTS 2014.

Montreal Manufacturing Technology Show | May 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14 2014 | Place Bonaventure | Montreal QC

To book your exhibit space, visit mmts.ca or call Julie Pike 1-888-322-7333 ext. 4471.

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Large bulk carriers for liquefied natural gas store the fuel at temperatures as cold as –164°C but must survive the high stress and strain environment of large oceangoing ships

Introducing the FEIN KBM 65 U The newest addition to the FEIN core drilling family.

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EXTENSIVE DEVELOPMENT WORK The starting point for the research project was the lowtemperature material X8Ni9, which is used as a standard sheet and forging material for applications down to –196°C. However, due to the high cracking sensitivity of the coarse-grained primary structure, no casting alternative to the material existed previously. The aim was to present the material as a casting modification by combining findings from analytics, metallurgy and heat treatment. In addition to extensive materials testing and comprehensive literature research, this also involved cooperation with external experts. The latest technologies were used here, e.g. a casting technology simulation, thermodynamic calculations of the material and heat treatment, and the latest methods of analysis for the investigation results. One of the findings was that the requirements in terms of purity of the input substances and in terms of melting and shaping technology are particularly important. Additionally, the heat treatment parameters must also be set extremely precisely. Based on the findings, experimental production was then undertaken — from melting and casting through heat treatment to mechanical testing. After casting, the castings were subjected to extensive checks. In addition to visual and

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colour penetration checks, these included ultrasound and x-ray examinations. It was possible to demonstrate that the alloying concept together with the selected cooling conditions really does produce crack-free castings.

Furthermore, a series of heat treatment tests took place in order to optimise the mechanical values.

The result of this series of tests is the new low-temperature material DUX CRYO. This stands out for its increased yield strength and outstanding low-temperature strength.

The casting can therefore be designed and constructed with significantly thinner walls. This allows greater design freedom, saves on weight and costs, and conserves resources.

“Because of the chemical composition, the new material is more advantageous than austenite — with a similar nickel content, it contains no chromium,” Becker states. The material can be mechanically processed with no problems.

DIVERSE APPLICATIONS DUX CRYO is suitable for all areas in which work is carried out at temperatures between –100°C and –196°C for example, wherever cryogens such as dry ice or liquid oxygen and nitrogen are used. This applies including for air liquefaction and separation systems, in which air components are separated using thermal separation processes to extract nitrogen, oxygen, argon and other noble

gases in high-purity concentration as well as in liquid and gaseous form. Another application with a promising future is the liquefaction of natural gas: here, the natural gas is cooled to as low as –164°C in so-called LNG terminals — the demands on the components used are accordingly also high. Similar demands apply for cold grinding and cryogenic recycling. These processes are used in the food industry and in the area of composite materials. The aim here is the grinding of materials with a low softening point. “This material could also have interesting potential in the areas of soil freezing, industrial refrigeration technology and oil sands extraction,” Dr Becker expounded.

The same applies for all components that are used at low external temperatures: whether pumps in Alaska or deep-sea offshore applications.

Dr Petra Becker, head of research & development at SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACH GUSS

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Three Ways to Make Your Mark There are multiple methods for metal part marking ... which is best for you?

Information courtesy Gravotech Inc. .........................................................................................................................................................

M

arking metal parts is really about choosing between two concepts: add the mark onto the surface, or cut, emboss or burn the mark into the surface.

Printing, pressure sensitive labels, silk screening and other add-on techniques are easy to understand, but like all processes that depend on adhesion to a surface, durability is an issue. Abrasion, moisture, solvents and simple part wear can remove the marking, which can be inconvenient for a point of sale cashier looking for a bar code, or dangerous for a jet engine mechanic checking a replacement part serial number. While most applications are somewhere in between, there are several permanent techniques available that are cost effective and quick.

Here’s a look at the options: DOT PEEN MARKING Dot peening uses a hardened stylus to rapidly indent the surface of components, analogous to manual marking using a hammer and centre punch, but much faster and with greater control. The machine is programmed to produce a wide variety of marks: numbers, text, 2D machine-readable codes, symbols and logos are possible.

The process is a microscopic upsetting of the metal surface creating a small indentation, but at a very shallow depth, eliminating worries about stress riser formation in almost any application. The resolution of the mark

depends on the impact force of the stylus and also on the frequency of stylus movement. Compressed air powered machines can achieve 200-300 cycles per second, while electromagnetically-driven units operate at less than half the frequency, but with greater control of the stylus impact force. A wide range of materials can be marked other than metals, including plastics, glass and wood. A limitation in this process is difficulty in marking hardened steels.

SCRIBING Scribing is similar to the dot peening process in that it uses a hardened stylus, but instead of a series of small impacts, the stylus id pushed into the surface and moved laterally to create a continuous line. Most machine and fabricating shops use hand-held carbide-tipped scribers; the process is easy to understand and much quieter than peening solutions, a consideration when the “oil can effect” of peening hollow or thin wall parts can make noise objectionable. Scribing also produces a high–quality mark and can be programmed using similar equipment to dotpeening techniques. Like dot peening, numbers, letters, 2D coding and logos are possible on a a wide range of materials, but unlike dot peen processes, scribing is ideal for hardened metals, making this technique a favorite of the mold, tool and die industries.

Dot peen processes are cost effective and can create complex logos or codes Scribed marks are highly readable and can be used on hardened metal parts

Laser marking offers high quality and speed with minimal disruption of the surface.

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LASER MARKING Lasers are all about directing energy into a very small spot, making hem perfect for marking applications. Speed and control are excellent, and the extremely high pulse rate pumps very little heat into the part surface. Contrast on metal surfaces is high and the form of the mark itself is virtually unlimited. Another major advantage of laser technology is low maintenance and operating costs. There are few moving parts and in marking applications, power is on the order of a few hundred watts, allowing air cooling to replace chillers.

Like laser cutting technology, the major decision is in the resonator choice. CO2 is traditional and is a good choice for plastics and anodized aluminum, but for most metal marking applications, fibre is a good choice, or the more exotic ND:YAG (Neodymium doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) lasers are available. Five-micron resolution is possible, which can’t be achieved with mechanical processes like scribing or dot peening. The CO2/fibre comparison is well known to the metalworking industry through large, kilowatt-level cutting equipment, but the ND:YAG option is less familiar. ND:YAG lasers are diodepumped, making them solid-state and low maintenance, and have been used in high-power forms for cutting and welding steel and have the precision to microdrill cooling holes in superalloy gas turbine parts. For applications that need a very high level of beam and energy control, ND:YAG may be the answer.

With three basic types of marking, however, how should an end-user approach the problem? According to Steve

Sellon, sales manager, industrial for Mississauga-based Gravotech Inc., it’s important to understand what the goal is for the process. In manufactured parts, it’s about quality and process control: “They provide the ability to track customers products throughout the manufacturing process.. They also provide the ability to apply data to their products to manage warranty and service life.

This data inherently provides traceability to ensure the integrity of the materials and or product. In short you can monitor where your parts came from and where they went. When this data is measured it can be a powerful tool in the continuous improvement and success of any company”.

While all three techniques are versatile, laser is surely the gold standard. It’s so versatile, however, that careful study of the application is important to make sure that it’s the most cost-effective method, and to choose the right kind of laser.

“Materials consist of many different variables in today’s manufacturing process”, states Sellon, adding, “the correct way to approach a solution with a customer is from their plant floor. We work our way backwards from there to provide the best solution for their needs. Through our over 25 years of application and integration experience we use the following template as our baseline approach to customer solutions; CO2 for marking on paper, wood, plastics, glass, ceramics & most of the organic materials, and fibre for marking on plastics, ceramics and metals, including hard service materials.” www.gravotech.com

Information courtesy Gravotech Inc

WHY USE DURABLE METAL MARKING?

T

his automotive catalytic converter repair is a common service task. The automotive aftermarket parts industry is also plagued by high warranty return rates often caused by mechanics installing incorrect parts. A paper or plastic label would burn off during welding,

making it difficult or impossible to check numbers after installation.

With a durable mark like this part number on a new converter, warranty returns are minimized and inventory levels are easier to monitor. A 2D QR-type code that’s machine readable makes the task even easier.

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ADVERTISERS INDEX ADVERTISER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE

ADVERTISER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE

ABB Robotics Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Messer Cutting Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Abtex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Miller Electric. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

AMT Machine Tools Ltd.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Mori Seiki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Benz Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Multicyl Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Brubaker Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Nederman Canada Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Canadian Measurement-Metrology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

North American Laser Systems Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

CWB Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

PFERD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Dillon Manaufacturing, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Power Pusher Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Dipaolo CNC Retrofit Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Renishaw (Canada) Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Elliott Matsuura Canada Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Retention Knob Supply & Mfg. Co. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Emuge Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Eriez Magnetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 ESAB Canada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Fein Power Tool Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Ferric Machinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Gravotech - Gravograph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Gravotech - Technifor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Haas Automation Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Henkel Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Hiwin Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 HORN USA, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Hougen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Hurco USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IFC

Salvagnini America, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Sandvik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Schunk Intec Corp.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Scientific Cutting Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Scotchman Industries, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 SGS Tool Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Shop Data Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Sirco Machinery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Slater Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 SME - FABTECH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 SME - MMTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 SMS Machine Tools Ltd.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Sumitomo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 TE-CO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Hyundai-Wia Machine America Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Thomas Skinner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Ingersoll Cutting Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

TRUMPF Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IBC

Iscar Tools Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OBC

Tungaloy America Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

ITI Tooling Company Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

United Grinding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Jesse Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Ursviken Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Kinetic Cutting Systems Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

US Shop Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Kyocera Cutting Tool Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Walter Surface Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Lincoln Electric Co. of Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Walter USA, LLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

LVD Strppit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Weiler Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Machitech Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Wilson Tool International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Megatel Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

YG-1 Canada Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

8CMM20186

01/07/2008

08:19 AM

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TERRITORY SALES MANAGER North American-based manufacturer of precision, solid round tools is seeking a Territory Sales Manager/Application Specialist for both the Ontario market and British Columbia/Alberta provinces. Our products include solid carbide end mills, HSS, cobalt and powered metal end mills and taps. We go to market under the Data Flute, Weldon and Brubaker brands. The ideal candidate will possess a strong technical background and strong working knowledge of machining; specifically milling and tapping. Responsibilities will include field technical support of our end-user customers, field technical support for our distribution partners, and sales.

Qualified and interested applicants should respond to:

Dauphin Precision Tool, LLC Linda L. Butler, Human Resources Manager Email: linda_butler@talbotholdings.com Phone: 717-692-8230

IN STOCK American Standards and specials.

Japanese Standards inch or metric.

FOR FAST DELIVERY: Contact your local tooling dealer or order direct.

TEL 937-686-6405 FAX 937-686-4125 www.retentionknobsupply.com Retention Knob Supply Company P.O. Box 61 Bellefontaine, OH 43311 www.canadianmetalworking.com | NOVEMBER 2013 | 97

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By The NUMBERS Where’s the Growth?

Canada’s small and medium sized enterprises are growing well below their potential. Why?

I

n a recent research study for Industry Canada by Daniel L. Seens, CFA, an interesting phenomenon has emerged about growth rates in Canadian SME’s. Entitled “Small and Medium-Sized

Entreprises Growth Study: Actual vs. Sustainable Growth”, the paper presents several surprising facts about the way Canadians manage business. A key finding is summarized by the graph below:

Only in 2000 and 2001 did actual growth rates of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses exceed their predicted sustainable growth rates and in the decade through 2010 only in 2003 did the actual growth rate even come close. At the most recent data point, 2010, actual versus sustainable growth is diverging alarmingly.

It’s important to note that the sustainable growth curve takes into account factors like access to capital, a common complaint among Canadian business managers. Seens’ report raises troubling questions. He suggests that Canadian SME management may lack the knowledge and skills needed to exploit new growth opportunities and that Canadian management may be excessively conservative or pessimistic. Further, Seens notes that it’s possible that business owners simply lack the ambition to grow or are cushioning themselves against the negative shock to demand.

If true, these conclusions suggest that there something built into Canadian management psyche that prevents our economy from reaching its full potential. If true, this shortage in entrepreneurial skill is far more serious than the current shortage of labour skill. Do we lack the killer instinct? Maybe, but the extensively research report does suggest that Canadian SME managers do not regard growth as a top priority. With Canadian trade deals now signed across both oceans and moving toward South America, competition going forward will be tougher than ever. Will this competition create a more dynamic breed of Canadian managers? Likely, it won’t take a decade to find out.

The full text of the report is available at: www.ic.gc.ca/SMEresearch/reports

98 | NOVEMBER 2013 | www.canadianmetalworking.com

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