Honscn Co.,Ltd is an enterprise focusing on the design and quality of the products like custom cnc machining. Our design team is composed by a master designer who has the responsibility to make decisions about the way the creative process should evolve, and a number of technical designers specialized in the industry for years. We also employ the industry experts to dominate the production process from materials selection, processing, quality control, to quality inspection.
The customers praise our efforts in delivering high-quality HONSCN products. They think highly of the performance, updating cycle and exquisite workmanship of the product. The products with all these features extensively enhance customer experience, bringing a remarkable increase in sales to the company. The customers voluntarily give positive comments, and the products spread rapidly in the market by word of mouth.
With the responsibility in the core of our service concept, we offer fabulous, fast and reliable customer service for custom cnc machining at Honscn.
Shenzhen Honscn is a professional manufacturer of CNC Machine Parts, Auto Lathe Machine Parts, and Screw Fasteners. We offer OEM and ODM service with any related products for customers. We have a professional team of product design and engineers, as well as a professional QC team, our sales and documentation and logistics departments can finish the requirements of presentation of documents under various payment methods and different transportation modes.
• We can make offcial drawings based on customer request, or customer will provide their drawings for us to quote price and make samples for approval.
• After receiving the samples, customers will do a test for the material, size and tolerance. If customer need to change the size or material, we can arrange second samples for approval. Until customer approved the samples, then we will confirm large order.
Meantime, we will test it before shipping samples. And all tests are strictly carried out according to industry standards.
• If confirmed the sample okay, the customer needs us to provide the Mill Test Crtificate of this product conforming to EU standards, such as CE, RoHS, REACH before placing order. All of our products are in accordance with all the European certification, such as CE, RoHS, REACH, etc., and all of them have prepared standard documents for customers checking.
• We start to prepare the order materials when customer confirm all the details such as material, size, tolerance, surface finish and other details of the final sample.
After the package such as qty, label, shipping mark etc. are provided by customer, we starts to arrange the mass production. After all the goods finished, send pictures to customer for approval. We promise the packag is same as customer requested, mass products are exactly the same as the final samples. The following photos of the shipment, the passing rate of the third-party inspection of our company is 100%.
• After receiving shipment of whole order, customer put it on the market immediately and became the most popular product in the market quickly, no matter from the traditional market, the market of high-end professional fasteners or the online sales in Amazon. We always pay much attention to the quality of our products, which is recognized by customers and repurchased constantly.
No machine can be made without holes. To connect the parts together, a variety of different sizes of screw holes, pin holes or rivet holes are required; In order to fix the transmission parts, various mounting holes are needed; The machine parts themselves also have many kinds of holes (such as oil holes, process holes, weight reduction holes, etc.). The operation of machining holes so that the holes meet the requirements is called hole machining.
The surface of the inner hole is one of the important surfaces of the mechanical parts. In mechanical parts, parts with holes generally account for 50% to 80% of the total number of parts. The types of holes are also diverse, there are cylindrical holes, conical holes, threaded holes and shaped holes. Common cylindrical holes are divided into general holes and deep holes, and deep holes are difficult to process.
Advantages of U drill
1. First of all, the difference between U drill and ordinary drill is that U drill uses the peripheral blade and the center blade, at this Angle, the relationship between U drill and ordinary hard drill is actually similar to the relationship between the machine clamping turning tool and the welding turning tool, and the blade can be replaced directly after the tool is worn without regrinding. After all, the use of indexable blades still saves material than the whole hard drill, and the consistency of the blade makes it easier to control the size of the part.
2. The rigidity of U drill is better, you can use a high feed rate, and the processing diameter of U drill is much larger than that of ordinary drill, the maximum can reach D50~60mm, of course, U drill can not be too small due to the characteristics of the blade.
3.U drill encounter a variety of materials only need to replace the same type of different grades of blade, hard drill is not so convenient.
4. Compared with hard drilling, the precision of the hole drilled by U drilling is still higher, and the finish is better, especially when the cooling and lubrication are not smooth, it is more obvious, and U drilling can correct the position accuracy of the hole, and hard drilling can not be done, and U drilling can be used as a bore knife.
Advantages of U drill in CNC machining
1. U drill can punch holes on surfaces with inclination angles less than 30~ without reducing cutting parameters.
2. After the cutting parameters of U drilling are reduced by 30%, intermittent cutting can be achieved, such as processing intersecting holes, intersecting holes, and phase perforation.
3. U drilling can realize the drilling of multi-step holes, and can boring, chamfer, eccentric drilling.
4. When drilling, the drilling chips are mostly short chips, and the internal cooling system can be used for safe chip removal, without cleaning the chips on the tool, which is conducive to the continuity of the processing of the product, shorten the processing time and improve efficiency.
5. Under the condition of standard length-diameter ratio, no chip removal is required when drilling with U drill.
6. U drill for indexable tool, blade wear without sharpening, more convenient replacement, and low cost.
7. The surface roughness value of the hole processed by U drilling is small, and the tolerance range is small, which can replace the work of some boring tools.
8. The use of U drilling does not need to pre-punch the center hole, and the blind hole bottom surface processed is relatively straight, eliminating the flat-bottom drill.
9. The use of U drilling technology can not only reduce drilling tools, and because U drilling is the head of the cemented carbide blade, its cutting life is more than ten times the ordinary drill, at the same time, there are four cutting edges on the blade, blade wear can be replaced at any time cutting, the new cutting saves a lot of grinding and replacing the tool time, can improve the average efficiency 6-7 times.
U drill in the use of CNC machine tools skills
1. When using U drill, the rigidity of the machine tool and the neutrality of the tool and the workpiece are high, so U drill is suitable for use on high-power, high-rigidity and high-speed CNC machine tools.
2. When using U drilling, the center blade should be used with good toughness, and the peripheral blade should be used with relatively sharp blades.
3. When processing different materials, should choose different groove blade, under normal circumstances, small feed, small tolerance, U drilling length to diameter ratio, choose the groove blade with smaller cutting force, on the contrary, rough machining, large tolerance, U drilling length to diameter ratio is small, then choose the groove blade with larger cutting force.
4. When using U drilling, we must consider the power of the machine tool spindle, the stability of U drilling clamping, the pressure and flow of cutting fluid, and control the chip removal effect of U drilling, otherwise it will greatly affect the surface roughness and dimensional accuracy of the hole.
5. When installing the U drill, it is necessary to make the U drill center coincide with the center of the workpiece and be perpendicular to the surface of the workpiece.
6. When using U drilling, the appropriate cutting parameters should be selected according to different parts materials.
7. When drilling test cutting, be sure not to reduce the feed or speed at will because of caution and fear, so that the U drill blade is damaged or the U drill is damaged.
8. When using U-drill processing, when the blade is worn or damaged, it is necessary to carefully analyze the reasons and replace the blade with better toughness or more wear-resistant.
9. When using U drill to process step holes, it is necessary to start processing from large holes and then process small holes.
10. When drilling, pay attention to the cutting fluid to have enough pressure in order to flush out the chips.
11. The blade used on the center and edge of the U drill is different, must not be misused, otherwise it will damage the U drill rod.
12. When drilling with U-drill, workpiece rotation, tool rotation, and simultaneous rotation of the tool and workpiece can be used, but when the tool is moved in a linear feed mode, the most common method is to use the workpiece rotation mode.
13. The performance of the lathe should be considered when machining on the CNC car, and the cutting parameters should be adjusted appropriately, generally reducing the speed and low feed.
U drill in CNC machining often appear problems
1. The blade is damaged too fast, easy to break, and the processing cost increases.
2. A harsh whistle is emitted during processing, and the cutting state is abnormal.
3. Machine jitter, affecting the machining accuracy of machine tools.
U drill use points to note
1. The installation of U drill should pay attention to the positive and negative directions, which blade is up, which blade is down, which is facing inside and which is facing outside.
2. The center height of U drilling must be corrected, according to its diameter size to require the control range, generally controlled within 0.1mm, the smaller the diameter of U drilling, the higher the center height requirements, the center height is not good U drilling two sides will wear, the aperture will be larger, the blade service life will be shortened, small U drilling is easy to break.
3. U drill has very high requirements for coolant, it must be ensured that the coolant is emitted from the center of U drill, the greater the pressure of the coolant, the better, the excess water outlet of the tower can be blocked up to ensure its pressure.
4, U drilling cutting parameters in strict accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, but also to consider different brands of blades, machine power, processing can refer to the load value of the machine tool size, make appropriate adjustments, generally using high speed, low feed.
5.U drill blade to check often, timely replacement, different blades can not be installed reverse.
6. According to the hardness of the workpiece and the length of the tool suspension to adjust the feed amount, the harder the workpiece, the larger the tool suspension, the smaller the cutting amount.
7. Do not use excessive wear of the blade, should be recorded in the production of blade wear and the relationship between the number of workpieces can be machined, timely replacement of new blades.
8. Use sufficient internal coolant with correct pressure. The main function of the coolant is chip removal and cooling.
9.U drill can not be used for processing softer materials, such as copper, soft aluminum, etc.
Honscn has more than ten years of cnc machining experience, specializing in cnc machining, hardware mechanical parts processing, automation equipment parts processing. Robot parts processing, UAV parts processing, bicycle parts processing, medical parts processing, etc. It is one of the high-quality suppliers of cnc machining. At present, the company has more than 50 sets of cnc machining centers, grinding machines, milling machines, high-quality high-precision testing equipment, to provide customers with precision and high-quality cnc spare parts processing services.
Nowadays, smart phones have changed from plastic back cover to thin metal body. Although the smart appearance attracts consumers, the production process of mobile phone case parts suppliers is more difficult. Only because the cutting and processing of the case requires quite high precision, even if it is only a small deviation, it may cause workpiece scrapping and erode profits.
In order to improve the yield of CNC processing, mobile phone box manufacturers are often forced to change tools frequently to ensure that CNC machines maintain a normal production beat, but this leads to an increase in the cost of consumables and also affects profits. In addition, the mobile phone case processing industry attaches great importance to the production rate, for fear that the sudden failure of CNC cutting machine will lead to negative chain reactions such as production capacity decline and delivery delay, which will damage customer satisfaction and goodwill. Therefore, it allocates manpower to carry out regular inspection and entrusts outsourcers to provide second-line maintenance support, but these methods are passive, It is difficult to effectively deal with abnormal conditions at the first time.
Mobile phone case is one of the cases of CNC machine application. CNC cutting is widely used in various processing and manufacturing, and various suppliers are facing a similar profit defense war. Xu Changyi, manager of Linghua technology measurement and automation products division, believes that whether you want to improve the machining accuracy or increase the productivity, the axe bottom salary drawing plan is to monitor the cutting process, especially the vibration monitoring, mainly because once the vibration value of the machine rises beyond the reasonable range due to imbalance, resonance or misalignment, It is easy to affect the operation of the machine, resulting in fault shutdown.
PC based monitoring solution is better than PLC solution to capture fine vibration signals
If the CNC processing machine can be endowed with intelligence and built with a set of full-time vibration monitoring mechanism, it can diagnose the health state of the machine at any time. Instead of waiting for the output of the final finished product and judging the cause of the abnormality afterwards, it can detect the unusual state of the processing machine in real time through preventive detection in advance and take corresponding treatment measures quickly, Including optimizing and adjusting processing parameters (such as changing spindle speed), or changing tools, etc. to solve small deviations immediately and avoid causing major disasters in the future.
It can not be denied that the cutting vibration monitoring of CNC machining machines is not a new topic at this moment. In the past, there were some PLC solutions with the demand of simplicity and convenience, which boasted that as long as the CNC machine was connected, it could produce utility quickly; Therefore, it is inevitable that some people wonder why PC based monitoring scheme is needed since PLC is available to assist in cutting vibration monitoring?
The so-called devil lies in the details. Some subtle vibration signals or high-frequency signals reflect some facts to some extent. It may be that the connecting mechanism begins to be unbalanced, the rotating spindle bearing ball breaks and affects the transmission power, or the fasteners become loose, which means that the CNC machining machine begins to "get sick", and the symptoms are different with the different machine characteristics; These subtle and changeable signs are not easy to capture by virtue of the PLC solution with the characteristics of low sampling rate, supporting limited bandwidth range and fixed algorithm. If the CNC monitoring solution can capture small changes and help users quickly grasp the key factors that may lead to reduced accuracy or capacity decline, they can respond as soon as possible.
In view of this, Linghua launched a cutting vibration monitoring scheme called mcm-100, which boasts that it can carry out 24-hour continuous data acquisition and vibration measurement for rotating transfer machinery and equipment under the condition of high precision and high sampling rate, and integrate the functions of data collection, vibration analysis and calculation, operation, Internet access and so on, Assist CNC machine users to successfully solve various challenges faced by traditional cutting process, and endow CNC machine with intelligence in the most relaxed and burden-free way.Achieve the wonderful effect of preventive maintenance through high-precision monitoring
Xu Changyi explained that generally speaking, there are three detection situations that CNC machines most want to establish. One is "spindle vibration detection", which aims to monitor the vibration of the spindle during cutting. The method is to directly measure the RMS value of the time domain signal. If it exceeds the critical value, reduce the speed or stop running; The second is "bearing quality diagnostic tic", which is intended to diagnose the health status of bearings. It is carried out when CNC does not perform cutting and only idles at high speed; The third is "spindle collision detection", which is used to detect the spindle collision. When the vibration wave pattern meets some default conditions, it is judged that the collision has occurred, and the spindle movement is stopped immediately.
The above situations 1 and 2 are closely related to the accuracy and bandwidth range of vibration signals. PLC solutions can capture very little information, which is difficult to help users establish contingency strategies; In contrast, mcm-100 not only has 24 bit high resolution capability (generally falling in the range of 12 or 16 bit), but also can capture high-frequency signals with a sampling rate of up to 128ks / S (generally only supporting 20Ks / s or even lower), so as to provide users with more vibration analysis materials.New business opportunities for CNC machine equipment manufacturers
On the other hand, the cutting vibration monitoring scheme can also create new business opportunities for CNC machine equipment manufacturers. As CNC machine equipment suppliers are exposed to a large amount of vibration information, once combined with big data analysis, they have a more thorough understanding of the correlation between signal changes and machine failures. CNC machine equipment suppliers can make good use of the accumulated knowledge assets, give birth to value-added services, and even adjust their business model from selling out equipment to selling machine operation hours, Establish long-term stable income. According to Linghua technology, the operator of PC based cutting vibration monitoring scheme, the vibration monitoring scheme has entered the landing stage and has been adopted by various well-known CNC tool machine manufacturers, and its demand has increased significantly in 2017, which shows that both CNC processors and CNC tool machine manufacturers have increasingly keen demand for CNC cutting vibration monitoring scheme.
For a machine that not so long ago did not even exist, the uses for CNC machining centers have quickly become vast and continue to grow.
Woodworkers today are using these versatile machines for a variety of uses ranging from high-speed, flat-panel production work to very intricate carvings. Combining high speed boring with routing, profiling, cutting and other features, these computer-controlled marvels are being successfully utilized in shops that produce everything from beautiful high-end architectural woodwork to flanges for take up reels.
In the following pages, WOOD & WOOD PRODUCTS interviews woodworkers from around the country who have increased their productivity and accuracy while reducing labor costs through investments in CNC technology. Following are their stories.
SPEAKER MAKER USES CNC MACHINERY TO MAKE IT'S DIVERSE PRODUCT As an OEM supplier of audio speakers, the products that Tiffin, Ohio-based Ameriwood Industries International Inc. manufactures vary in size from small bookshelf-size speakers to large symphonic speakers.
Jim Harrington, plant manager of Ameriwood, said, "We do a variety of sizes and styles. We work with different types of materials, with different thicknesses and locations of holes. No two things are alike." Because of this product diversity, Ameriwood Industries (formerly Tiffin Enterprises) used to perform multiple machining operations for every item. Multiple operations meant that several workers had to handle each part, "and the more you handle it, the more opportunity there is for the product to be damaged," Harrington said.
To minimize parts handling -- and thus reduce their labor costs -- the company made an investment in a CNC machining center from Roger Stiles & Associates.
MACHINING CENTERS Vinyl overlayed particleboard is trimmed, cut-to-size, drilled and routed on the machining center. Computer programs are downloaded from a computer system directly into the machine's controller.
"We used CNC routers for a number of years," Harrington said. "The machining center is taking the place of routing and vertical-type drills." The machining center allows the company to do up to 12 workpieces at a time, Harrington said. After all the machining operations have been completed it is a "totally finished part" without need of further machining, Harrington added.
EFFICIENT PLANT HELPS COMPANY CONTROL COSTS In the past two years, Warvel Products-North Carolina has experienced dramatic price increases for the raw materials used to produce curved plywood components. These components are then sold to contract furniture manufacturers such as Haworth.
"We had 30 percent increases in our raw material costs," said sales manager Robbie Wiltcher, "so we have improved plant efficiency by purchasing machinery and technology that would allow us to absorb as much (of the price increase) as possible without passing these costs on. It is important for us as a vendor to help our customers be as competitive in their markets as possible." One of the ways Warvel did this was through the purchase of a multiple-station, four-axis CNC machining center from C.M.S North America. The machining center allows the company to mount up to six components at a time, and complements the company's existing three and five axis machining centers, Wiltcher said.
This is important, considering the amount of product which is shipped from the company's plant in Linwood, N.C. Approximately 100,000 parts a month are produced at the facility, the majority of which are customized. The company has a catalog with standard components, but Wiltcher said that 80 percent of the company's orders are made per customers specifications.
"The machine is capable of multiple machining tasks," Wiltcher said. "In most cases all that's left to do is light sanding and tee-nut installation where required." Another benefit, Wiltcher added, is the very tight tolerances obtained with the machine. The company supplies curved plywood which must integrate with plastic and steel components in ergonomic chairs.
"It is essential to be able to maintain tight tolerances in the various required operations such as drilling on angles, profiling and notching so that all of the different chair components fit together the way they were engineered. This machine provides all of these things," Wiltcher said.
To increase productivity even further, the company purchased machines and software that complement the machining center, including a digitizing machine. The digitizer will read a template part and the software will create a program which is downloaded into the machining center. The company also uses the system to internally produce its own compound tooling.
"The system has reduced the lead time on new tooling from months to days," said Wiltcher. "All of these capabilities assists our customers in bringing many new products to market rapidly and competitively." HIGH-TECH HELPS HIGH-END ARCHITECTURAL FIRM Powell Cabinet & Fixtures of Sparks, Nev., is a high-end architectural woodworking company whose work ranges from luxurious residences to glistening casinos.
The 42-year-old company, which bills itself as the oldest architectural woodworking company in the state of Nevada, is owned by the father/son team of Roger and Bill Powell.
One of the company's most recent projects was for the new Luxor Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. The company did a variety of work at the hotel, including a 3 1/2-inch thick, 13-inch wide, solid-mahogany handrail that was built on a 255-foot radius. The handrail also featured solid-cast bronze support pieces and etched glass.
The handrail was manufactured utilizing a Komo VR 512 CNC machining center the company got in January 1993. Prior to that, the company had been doing everything with multiple machines. "The machining center is exceptional on irregular shapes and curves," Bill Powell said.
"It is more adaptable than to have a journeyman do it by hand. The radius work takes more time to program, but instead of having a journeyman woodworker spend several days on something, the machine will produce the same product in significantly less time." Powell added that there is a learning curve to the machine. "The purchase of the machine is just the first step," Powell said.
"The time that it takes to learn how to program and operate it is a major expense, as is the tooling and all the programming updates that are needed to keep up-to-speed." But while these factors need to be taken into account, Powell said he thinks it is becoming essential for companies to invest in high-technology equipment. According to Powell, one of the reasons the company purchased the machining center was because "the quantity of qualified, journeyman cabinetmakers that can produce this type of work is diminishing. You have to rely on the technical aspects of the industry to help fill that void," he said.
COMPANY GROWS A STEP AT A TIME When Denny Beuter and Bob Bloss formed Diamond Cut Inc. eight years ago they had a plan. The two men wanted their South Bend, Ind.-based company to become a leader in the field of commercial sound equipment. A daunting task made all the more difficult considering they did not own any sophisticated equipment.
"We went on the premise that we needed extremely good equipment to make a really good product," said Beuter. "But in order to get good equipment you have to have a product with enough volume to keep the machine running." What Beuter and Bloss did was to start slowly, acquiring equipment and producing parts for other companies. "We would do cutting and edging, anything to get work into the plant," Beuter said. "To sell machine time you have to do everything a little bit better than what the (source) companies can do in their own shop. We got real good, real fast, because otherwise we had to eat the cost of the job." From doing this job-shop-type-work, the next step was doing contract work. "My partner (Bloss), whose background is in the speaker business, went out (to speaker companies) and said, 'We can make speakers boxes for you and we can do them with high precision,'" Beuter said.
Diamond Cut began producing speaker cabinets for such companies as JBL and Panasonic. The product Panasonic wanted the company to produce necessitated an equipment upgrade. "The Panasonic people wanted a (speaker) box that was trapezoid shape," Beuter said. "This product would have been almost impossible to make with the router we were using." Beuter and Bloss chose a U-26 Morbidelli machining center from Tekna Machinery. The machine not only allows them to produce the trapezoidal shapes, it also has reduced labor costs. "For example, we had one full-time worker on the payroll whose only job was to make jigs, Beuter said. "I have no more jigs." While Diamond Cut has grown, with sales projected to reach around $2 million in 1994, the company continues to move toward that plan. In 1993, the company started a proprietary line of heavy-duty commercial sound equipment under the moniker, Bull Frog.
The Bull Frog equipment is sold throughout the United States and a number of countries around the world. "For 24-hours a day, for the last three months, we have been so busy with our own proprietary work that we have not been able to do any outside work, Beuter said.
"Hopefully by the end of the year we will be completely out of contract work." BOOTH MAKER FINDS SIGN TO SUCCESS Utilizing a variety of materials, Farmington Displays of Farmington, Conn., creates trade show displays for companies in industries as diverse as food, computers and guns.
Farmington Displays, which was founded in 1973 by Paul DiTommaso Sr., counts 278 companies as its clients. On average, Farmington Displays' clients update their booths every three to five years.
"We have a pretty good job flow," said general manager Sal DiTommaso, son of Paul Sr. and one of three sons and a daughter currently working for the company. "Not everybody is building their booth at the same time." Farmington Displays boasts an impressive client list, including General Electric, NEC and gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson. In the traditionally very labor-intensive field of display manufacturing, the company stands out for its use of high-technology equipment. More than three years ago, after extensive research on available machinery, the company began its investment in CNC machinery.
"The first thing that sparked my interest in obtaining CNC machinery was watching one of my men cutting out an eight-foot circle," said Sal DiTommaso. "It was so archaic, I just said there had to be another way to do it." Farmington Display's plant now features two Heian CNC routers and a computerized panel saw from Stiles Machinery, as well as a computerized graphic/design laboratories linked together as a Local Area Network.
The Heian machining centers have allowed the company to branch out into areas such as manufacturing signage and store fixtures. Farmington Displays had always created graphics for signs, but the CNC routers allow the company to manufacture them in-house. Additionally, the company is now doing contract machining for other, non-competing manufacturers.
To create their distinctive products, the company utilizes a variety of materials. On its CNC routers, the company utilizes everything from acrylics to solid woods. On a separate metal machining center the company works with brass and other metallic alloys. "We don't farm anything out," DiTommaso said. "We try to keep everything in-house so that we have complete quality control over the finished product." FAMILY-OWNED LUMBER YARD SEIZES CHANCE TO DIVERSIFY ITS BUSINESS In 1922, Hans Lars founded Hansen Lumber in Galesburg, Ill. Over the next 70 or so years, the business would be handed down from family-member to family-member, and would remain a traditional lumber yard.
It remained solely a lumber yard until two years ago when Hansen Lumber seized an opportunity to diversify. The company was asked to do some circular panel cutting for a Galesburg-based manufacturer of wooden reels. Approximately a year later that manufacturer, who believed the reel industry was going to dominated by the use of plastics, first contemplated shuttering the facility and then offered to sell the business -- and its client list -- to Hansen Lumber.
The family-owned company, currently being run by Shard Hansen, the founder's grandson, with help from his daughter Karen (the fourth-generation family member in the business), decided to purchase the company, and quickly realized the need to upgrade its equipment.
"Taking up wire or rope around a reel must be done at very high feed rates, especially if it is a small diameter wire, because unless your doing it at a 1,000 feel a minute it would take forever to wind," said Hansen, "so the arbor hole has to be exact. If the arbor hole is off center the whole thing will be jerking." A little more than a year ago the company purchased a CNC machining center from Accu-Router. The machine features two vertical routers, which can machine 1 1/2 inch southern yellow pine industrial grade plywood used for the flanges on the reels and maintains tight tolerances.
Prior to working with the machining center, the company would have to cut out a square and in subsequent steps radius the panel down to the required size and shape.
Having a high-technology machining center not only provides for accuracy, it also helps to utilize the plywood. "Our flanges range in size from eight inches to 48 inches round," said Hansen.
"When we are cutting the circles, we can nest them in such a fashion that we get great yield and waste is very nominal." CNC EQUIPMENT HELPS CARVING COMPANY MAKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC Investing, not only in new equipment, but also in the training of its workforce has helped this Thomasville, N.C.-based carving company increase its capacity while reducing its overhead.
Founded in 1968, Piedmont Carving carves furniture parts -- specializing in chair parts -- and parts for such musical instruments as the cello and guitar.
Over the last few years, the company has sold some of its older carving machines and invested that money in computerized machinery including CNC Robot Carvers from Thermwood Corp.
"We used to have 13 carving machines and we would run all of them in one shift," said Gay Jones, who along with her twin brother Ray, and her father, company-founder Jimmy, own the business. "We sold three carving machines and still are projecting to triple our capacity with the robotic carvers." The company has reduced its labor costs in part by computerizing its carving, but also by cross training its 29 employees so that they can work on other machines in the shop.
Learning to efficiently use the CNC robot was a difficult challenge for the company, Gay Jones said, "but I'm glad we did because it gives us an advantage over companies who are just now getting into robotic carving." Piedmont Carving bought its first robotic carver four years ago. The company is planning to purchase additional machines.
One of the benefits of computerized machinery is consistency. This is important when Piedmont is crafting its furniture and musical instrument components.
"Chair parts have to fit together perfectly when they're sent to the manufacturer," Jones said. "With the robotic carving everything stays so consistent. This consistency is also very important when we are doing the musical instruments because the craftsmanship that goes into the part can affect the sound." CARVING WOOD PARTS 20 AT A TIME Intricate handcarvings are being quickly and accurately duplicated by Carving Research Inc. of Huntersville, N.C., using a 20-head Kitako CNC Machining Center distributed by Tekmatex Inc.
Carving Research is a 2-year-old, 12-employee company with projected 1994 sales of $840,000. The company supplies intricate wood carvings to such major residential furniture makers as Henredon Furniture Industries Inc. and Baker Furniture Co.
What once had to be done one at a time by master handcarvers can now be done 20 at a time by the company. This results not only in time savings but cost savings as well, without sacrificing the look of the product, according to company owner Tom Bowker. An example of the speed of the machine is a rice carved bed post; typically it would take a master handcarver approximately six to eight hours to complete, "while we can do it in an hour," Bowker said.
To produce the carvings, an initial handcarved template is made. This carving is sent to Tekmatex, where a digitizing machine creates a computer program which can be downloaded into the machining center. Once this program is completed, an infinite number of a given carving can be created with precision.
There are certain "essential ingredients" to creating the carvings, said Bowker. Tooling is one of the most important. Because of the nature of the product, the Carving Research utilizes unique tooling, including a razor-sharp veining bit developed by Oertli Woodworking Tools Inc. that leaves such a clean cut, that secondary carvings are not necessary, Bowker said. Another example is a 1/16-inch flat-bottom or straight router bit which is used on many of the carvings.
"Nobody else uses anything like that," Bowker said.
"Because of the intricacies of many of the carvings, we have to use a wider variety of tooling including some carbide tooling, than what you would use if running a normal carving operation. Many of our bits have to be small because you have to get in and do a cut and make it look like it was done with a chisel.