For ISCAR, as for any cutting tool manufacturer, die and mold making is a highly important customer segment. This industrial branch not only consumes more and more tools but constantly puts forward new demands, which have a significant impact on advances in cutting tools. These demands are typical for every metalworking sector: the customer is always interested in more productive, reliable, and accurate tools.
ISCAR’s recent LOGIQ campaign introduced a new product targeted especially to this challenging market – the TOR6MILL family of indexable milling cutters. A TOR6MILL cutter can carry inserts in four different geometries. Mounting the appropriate insert in the cutter transforms it to a toroidal, 90°, 45° or high feed milling tool. The cutter can be applied to machining 3D surfaces, square shoulders, plane faces, chamfers, or use as a productive high feed rougher.
Innovative technologies
High feed milling and high speed milling proved to be powerful methods for dramatically increasing machining productivity while reducing manual operations, consequently shortening production time significantly. Due in no small part to timely introduction of these efficient methods, the die & mold industry succeeded in filling the sharply increased demands for molds and dies that occurred in the 1990’s.
High Feed Milling
Today, cutting tool producers provide a great choice of high feed milling cutters, and ISCAR’s range of high feed (also known as fast feed or FF) milling tools seems to be the widest. ISCAR’s standard high feed milling line comprises more than 10 tool families that differ in their design principle (indexable, solid, with replaceable heads), nominal diameter, cutting geometry, mounting method and applicability (machining faces, pockets, deep cavities). This diverse range enables die and mold makers to select the optimal cutter for their needs.
ISCAR views high feed milling tools as important productivity boosters and continues to develop the line by introducing new families and improving the existing ones. Not surprisingly, the leading milling products presented in ISCAR’s recent LOGIQ cutting tool marketing campaign were related directly to fast feed cutters.
NAN3FEED and MICRO3FEED, two of the latest ISCAR families of indexable high feed milling tools, feature an 8-16 mm (.315-.625 in) diameter range. Even though solid carbide endmills traditionally dominate this range, ISCAR’s specialists believe that the advantages of the indexable-insert concept for rough machining will position the families as serious cost-effective alternatives to the solid carbide designs.
The LOGIQ4FEED family of fast feed cutters features “bone-shape” double-sided inserts. This unusual insert profile provides four cutting edges, with an exceptional ramp-down capability that defines the main application of the family: high-efficiency rough milling of cavities, particularly deep cavities. The cutters are suitable for machining workpieces with hardness up to HRC 50.
High Speed Milling
Expanding the range of products intended for high speed milling, ISCAR introduced multi-flute solid carbide endmills in 2 – 20 mm diameters (.250-.750 in) for high speed finish and semi-finish milling. The endmills are produced from the ultra-fine IC902 carbide grade, which was developed to machine hard materials, and have a cutting-length-to-diameter ratio of up to 6. They are operated at rotational speeds up to 20000 rpm. The application of solid carbide endmills for rough milling of slots and open pockets – by trochoidal technique and at high metal removal rate (MRR) – has also reached the attention of die and mold makers.