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PLUG AND PLAY
Kennametal’s new vibration-free boring system boasts a number of technological improvements that allows a plug and play operation. An array of interchangeable heads that includes screw-on and lever-style clamping mechanisms in positive and negative rake configurations.
Kennametal makes deep boring easy.
W
alk into most any machine shop and there’s a good chance you’ll hear it: the high pitch whine of a deep boring operation, the chatter loud enough to have even the most hard of hearing among us scrambling for a pair of ear plugs. It’s a problem that has plagued machinists since the day lathe inventor Henry Maudslay first chucked up a piece of steel and tried to bore a hole through it, and has only gotten worse as metals have grown tougher and more challenging to machine.
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Not anymore. Kennametal’s latest weapon in the war on chatter is one that will have machinists everywhere saying, “I need that.” The new boring system boasts the most effective anti-chatter mechanism ever developed by Kennametal, and also offers an extensive range of indexable heads and shank sizes. Enter the Vibration-Free Zone Someone who knows all about it is Sam Eichelberger, product engineer for lathe systems engineering and part of the team that developed the internal dampening mechanism. “Perhaps the most important thing to know about the new bar is that it’s plug and play,” he says. “There's no need whatsoever for tuning or adjustments—you simply 28 | Industry Asia Pacific | January 2019
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pull it out of the package, mount it in the turret, and get boring.” There’s more to the story than making the shop a quieter place to work, however. Eliminating vibration and therefore chatter greatly extends tool life, never mind its positive effect on part surface finish. And when tools last longer, they can be pushed harder, with feed rates, cutting speeds, and depths of cut many industry experts once thought unachievable. Eichelberger is one of them. He lists a number of features that not only make the vibration-free boring system the most easy-to-apply bar you’ll ever bore with, but also the most productive. These include a serrated, bolt-on connection at the bar’s business end that securely clamps a variety of styles and sizes of indexable heads. Better yet, the heads themselves have been put on a diet, with a shorter length and lighter weight that provides greater stability, contributing to the bar’s improved performance. They’re also coolant-fed,