Experience of using the Horn thread milling system not only proved highly productive, but also led to
uptake of the process for a new and highly demanding project involving extremely tough material.
Thread milling meets tough challenge
THREAD milling tooling supplied by Horn UK has
provided TM Specialist Engineers of Kingswinford with a
highly productive process for machining large diameter
threads in carbon steel. So successful did this initial
project prove to be that TM subsequently commissioned
CBN-tipped, Horn thread milling tools for machining high
toughness material.
The project entailed the manufacture of large shielding
blocks for the £140 million ISIS particle accelerator second
target station project at the Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, Oxford. The components needed a number of
M36 x 4mm blind threads to a depth of 70mm. In total,
around 830 threaded holes were required.
Though it is feasible to produce this size of thread by
manual tapping, the number required, the fact that they
were blind and the need for consistent quality led TM
Specialist Engineers to consider CNC thread milling.
Machine shop manager Martyn Crompton explains:
‘Manual tapping would have been fairly slow and
interrupted the flow of work. In addition tapping carried a
risk of thread damage due to broken or worn taps.’
TM had not previously used Horn tooling. However one
november 2007
of the company’s employees had prior experience of
using the Horn thread milling system and
recommended making contact with Horn UK.
Crompton: ‘We were able to conduct trials prior to
starting manufacture of the blocks which then allowed
production to flow smoothly. The Horn UK applications
engineer gave us complete support in respect of tooling
selection, CNC programming for the threading cycle and
cutting data.’
A standard three tooth threading insert was used for
the trial cutting speed of 220m/min and feedrate of 470
mm/min combined with 2.5mm depth of cut, which
provided a cycle time of less than two minutes per thread.
‘Using the Horn tooling provided us with a very
high quality thread in a fraction of the time that
would have been necessary for tapping.’ says
Martyn Crompton. ‘The method also provides
us with peace of mind as the process is much
more controlled. This has encouraged us to look
to use Horn’s tooling and applications expertise
on other projects.’
www.phorn.co.uk
Enquiry Number: 44 Enquiry Number: 45
tooling
Thread
milling
proved to be a
highly productive
process for
machining large
diameter threads
in extremely
tough material,
compared to
manual tapping
MWP
63
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