Mold & Die Making

Chatter-free cutting, agility for high-speed/hard-milling, and accuracies for tight-tolerance blends and matches typical of complex, 3D contoured geometry associated with tool production are delivered in the latest vertical machining center offering from Makino (Mason, OH).

A compact high-speed machining center that features a 30,000-rpm spindle and 20 by 20 inches of work area within its 59-by-55-inch footprint is billed as an economical means of milling, drilling, and engraving aluminum, plastics, stainless steel, brass, and exotic composites. The German-made M75 machine marketed by Datron Dynamics Inc. (Milford, NH) has a solid granite machining table and it is recommended for the production of panels and housings, milling profiles, and 2D or 3D engraving.

Exacting accuracy in contoured parts and the ability to accomplish five-face machining, thereby eliminating setups, reducing lead times, improving quality, and cutting costs, are attributes of the S56-5XB vertical machining center from Makino (Mason, OH).

Equipped with a 40-by-20-inch worktable with associated travels of 36 by 20 by 18 inches, the unit’s table-mounted tilt/trunnion provides full five-axis capability while the remaining table surface can be used for three-axis work.

GF AgieCharmilles’ Mikron HPM 800U high performance machining center offers dynamic, three-axis milling suited for the aerospace and automotive industries. Equipped with directly driven circular and swiveling axes, the machine can be used for a range of applications, including complex mold making, heavy roughing and precise finishing.

At the mid-October Fakuma Show in Germany, CAD/CAM developer Schott Systeme GmbH (Munich, Germany) showed how the latest version of its ePictures by PC software can cut 5-axis toolpath calculation time by up to 50%.



Delcam (Birmingham, UK) has launched version 10 of its award-winning PowerMill CAM system, which boasts the fastest-ever tool path generation on multiprocessor computers. The main benefit of PowerMill 10 is that users can prepare data in the foreground while calculating tool paths in the background. For example, it is no longer necessary to wait for a complete roughing path to be produced before work starts on programming the rest-roughing operation.

An upgrade to Makino’s (Auburn Hills, MI) V56 vertical machining center, designed specifically for large-part, high-speed hard milling, provides users with tighter accuracies, sustained dynamic performance, superior surface finishes, and long hours of continuous, unattended operation.

The Maxima ML-3500C UV lamp from Spectronics Corp. (Westbury, NY) slashes the time it takes to cure adhesives, coatings, plastics, and other materials. The lamp produces a nominal steady-state UV-A intensity of 90,000 µW/cm2 at 6 inches (15 cm) for high-speed curing and greatly increased production.

Haas Automation Inc. (Oxnard, CA) has made five-axis machining more accessible with its TR160Y dual-axis trunnion rotary table. The table is designed to mount in the Y direction (front to back on the table) of a midsize VMC. At less than 25 inches wide and only 20 inches deep, the TR160Y easily fits on one end of the machine’s table, freeing up the remainder for additional fixtures or vises.