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Case Study / Machining VIDEO Access video at end of article. Investing More Than Finances Yields True HighPerformance Machining Batesville Tooling & Design is a family-owned company that prides itself on the manufacture of complex injection molds for the aerospace, automotive, chemical, defense, medical, oil, power and transportation industries. Its philosophy on capital investments is to use each new piece of equipment as a steppingstone toward future performance enhancements. After several decades of transitioning from manual to commodity CNC machines, the company took its first step into high-performance machining in 2012 with a Makino F5 vertical machining center. Batesville realized that this leap in technology would require a different type of skill set than its operators were accustomed to, so the company signed on to attend training courses hosted by Makino at its Auburn Hills, Michigan, facility. "Without the training, we wouldn't Shrink-ft tooling, combined have known how to propwith the rigidity and speed erly use the F5 and all of of the F5, has led the its technologies," explains Gary Blair, Batesville's company to a 25- to 50founder and president. percent increase in tool life. "The training wasn't what I had expected," says Dan Blair, a manufacturing engineer at Batesville. "I walked into the classroom thinking that we would run through machine functions and call it quits. Instead we learned about Makino's entire approach to machining, beginning with machine tool construction and all the way through tooling decisions. It was an eye-opening experience that I took to heart and immediately applied to our processes after returning home." 20 MoldMaking Technology December 2013 Quality Straight Out of the Machine One of the first workpieces that Batesville sent through the F5 was a medical mold insert the size of a postage stamp. Prior to acquiring this machine, the company had to endure long hours of EDM processing in order to accomplish the desired feature tolerances and side-wall finishes. Because of the rigidity, accuracy and high spindle speed the F5 offers, the company decided to perform a test run on the machine. Initially, a 4-mm end mill was used to perform roughing and semi-finish processes on the workpiece. It was then finished using a 0.4-mm-diameter end mill. Where completion of the workpiece once required eight hours of machining and manual finishing procedures, the company was able to complete the part on the F5 in just one hour while meeting tolerances of ±0.0005 inch and achieving mirror-like surface finishes. "After completing the machining process, I inspected the cavity and could see clear reflections of various features along the side walls," Dan Blair says. "I'd never seen finishes like that straight out of a machine before. We pulled the part out of the machine complete—minimal secondary processes, minimal manual finishing. But the most satisfying results came when our customer shared that it was producing the best-looking parts they had seen come out of a mold." One of the most valued tips that Batesville picked up from its training at Makino was the appropriate use and application of shrink-fit tooling. It reached out to its local Single Source Technologies (SST) representative and was able to narrow its selection down to a Haimer shrink-fit machine The Blair family, (l to r) Gary Blair, Janice Blair and Dan Blair, stands in front of the company's new Makino F5.