Norton WINTER V-Prime Field Tested at Marlor Cutting Tools

Norton Winter V-Prime wheel

Case Study: Norton WINTER V-Prime Bond Successfully Field Tested at Marlor Cutting Tools.

Customer: Marlor Cutting Tools

(https://marlor.co.uk)

Customer Profile:

For half a century Marlor Tooling has been an industry leader in solid carbide cutting tool design and manufacture. They pride themselves on continually redefining standards productivity through the ongoing development of optimal tooling technologies and service.

Working across engineering sectors, Marlor have a clear ethos for innovation; designing and developing the best tooling solutions to improve quality, value and service for all clients.

 

Marlor Tooling are a highly valued and long-time customer of Norton WINTER.

This is a strong relationship that has proven to be mutually beneficial over the course of a number of years. We sincerely thank them for their continued custom and participation in this case study.

 

The Gash and Clearance Grinding of Carbide Four Flute Tapered Ball Nose Drills Using Diamond Resin Bond Grinding Wheels

Marlor manufacture Carbide Four Flute Tapered Ball Nose Drills in large batches on a robot loaded machine, the tolerances on the cutters are extremely tight and the finish quality is crucially important.

Before we started testing, Marlor were using a multitude of different specifications, these were either from Norton WINTER (old standard resins K+1421) or hybrid bonds sourced from major competitor suppliers.

finished carbide flute

 

In order to maintain the precise tolerances required, Marlor were forced into re-truing and dressing their wheels approximately every 20 parts and run at very slow parameters.

As the machine needed frequent human attention, this made it impossible to set up their robot equipped Walter Helitronic Power machine to run unmanned over a complete night shift or weekend.

 

At this time, product management at Saint-Gobain Abrasives informed Marlor’s Norton WINTER representative about the development of a new high performance resin product for tool gashing and clearance grinding applications and that the company would be seeking field tests.

Norton WINTER discussed this application with Marlor and they agreed to the field test proposal.

Note: the development bond used was originally designated K+5406, this would later become the “Norton WINTER V-Prime” product.

Norton Winter V-Prime product

 

Field Test Results

When Norton WINTER V-Prime was conditioned on the Kirner KC42 Dressing Machine, Marlor instantly found the wheel easier to true and dress when compared to their existing specifications.

 

The development wheel was then setup and the first tools manufactured at the current parameters were shown to grind the gash and clearance features without any problems.

 

  • The free grinding nature of the wheels imparted an excellent finish that the Marlor management team were very happy with.
  • A batch of 300 tools were completed without needing to true/dress the wheel.
  • All tolerances were maintained.

 

These initial outcomes proved to be an instant 'game changer' for Marlor as it enabled them to utilise their machine unmanned and overnight without any scrapped tools, thereby drastically improving overall productivity.

 

Further Improvements

The Norton WINTER Application Engineer was keen to further enhance Marlor’s productivity by increasing the feed rate of the wheel.

 

Feed rate was initially escalated from 15mm/min to 30mm/min, before being raised up to 50mm/min. Despite the increases there was no evidence of burning or any adverse effect on the finish achieved.

In actuality, the Norton WINTER team hypothesised that it would require significantly faster feed rates before negative outcomes would be observed in the process.

 

That being said however, Marlor have chosen to keep the feed rate at 30mm/min to ensure no risk of burning during their unsupervised lights-out manufacture.

Two years later and Marlor Cutting Tools are still using the Norton WINTER V-Prime specification; reporting to consistently achieve in excess of 500 parts before any trueing and dressing are required.

 

More Information

For further information about the Norton WINTER V-Prime product, or to discuss how Norton can improve your productivity levels, please contact your Norton WINTER representative or visit our website at www.nortonabrasives.com