"Machine Shop Hosts Machining Expo" – From Cutting Tool Magazine, June 2015 issue. Published with permission.
Busch Precision Inc. hosted a Machining & Maintenance Expo May 6 at its manufacturing facility in Milwaukee. More than 200 attendees and exhibitors participated in the event, which showcased the additional capabilities Busch can provide following its August acquisition of the CNC retrofitting and machine tool service and repair businesses from Maintenance Service Corp., West Allis, Wis.
Busch specializes in machining large components and tight-tolerance parts and repairing and rebuilding components, machine tools and other equipment. The number of capabilities increased from about 300 to 800 following the acquisition, according to the company’s director of marketing.
The expo presented exhibits and descriptions of machine tools and machined parts throughout the machine shop, including exhibits from the company’s supply chain and community participants, such as Women in Manufacturing, LiFE of HOPE and the Tool, Die & Machining Association of Wisconsin. In addition, the event featured food provided by Saz’s Catering, technical sessions and demonstrations of ball bar testing to identify machine errors, manual scraping of machine surfaces to achieve proper alignment and electrical panel layout and construction.
The technical sessions held in the conference room included “Lead Screws vs. Ball Screws,” by Larry LaJoie, president of Rempco Inc., Cadillac, Mich.; “Metalworking Fluids: 5 Common Mistakes,” by David Zipter, sales and service representative for Naperville, Ill.-based Castrol Industrial North America Inc.; “SINUTRAIN for the SINUMERIK CNC,” by Brian Hamilton, who’s involved with MTS consulting, business development and motion control for Siemens Industry Inc., Troy, Mich.; and “Machining Accuracy,” by Peter Beyer, product strategy and development director for Fives Giddings & Lewis, Fond du Lac, Wis. WiscoLift Inc., Greenville, Wis., a supplier of material lifting products, also presented a session titled “Safe Overhead Lifting Practices” at its booth.
Beyer’s presentation focused on understanding machine tool accuracy, which is beneficial when comparing machines from different builders. Although machine tool builders list accuracy and repeatability figures, he noted they typically don’t provide information about the standard they use to measure those numbers. Those standards include ISO 230-2, which is the most common one; ANSI/ASME B5.54 in the U.S.; JIS B 6192, B 6330, B 6338 and B 6336-2 in Japan; DIN ISO 230-2 in Germany; and a number of others. He noted each standard is a little different, with some being more different than others.
As an example, Beyer asked participants a “trick question.” Given that one machine lists an accuracy of 0.0006" (0.0152mm) and repeatability of 0.0004" (0.0102mm) while another offers an accuracy of ±0.0002" (0.0051mm) and a repeatability of ±0.0001" (0.0025mm), which is more accurate? The correct answer, which no one provided, is both are equally accurate. He explained that Giddings & Lewis measured the accuracy and repeatability for one of its vertical turning centers and found that using the ISO standard, which requires 110 total measurements, generated the larger numbers, and using JIS, which requires 32 total measurements, produced the smaller ones.
He added that after measuring 12 different machines according to ISO and JIS, the machine tool builder determined that ISO’s accuracy result is 1.7 times that of JIS, and ISO’s repeatability is 2.6 times the result for JIS. As a result, Beyer recommends that machine builders include a reference to the industry standard used to measure accuracy and repeatability specifications. “Without this, the specs are meaningless,” he said.—Alan Richter, editor, Cutting Tool Magazine