Turning Around Money-losing Jobs

July 1, 2009

Mecon can create press brake dies to a customer's specifications.

Difficult jobs can be a reminder why it’s good to keep up with the latest cutting tool advances. For Mecon Industries of Scarborough, Ont., new tooling was the difference between potential failure on a job no one could cut and delivering the part on time as promised.

The company chose tooling from Kennametal Inc. called Beyond™ - a portfolio of new grades and geometries for cutting cast iron, steel, stainless steel, and high-temperature alloys. According to the manufacturer, Beyond tools are engineered to increase metal-removal rates and extend tool life, significantly in many cases.

“Depending on the application, field tests have shown anywhere from 30 to 300 percent improvement,” said Ujjwal Baid, Kennametal senior product manager.

Beyond tools feature a new postcoat surface treatment that, according to Kennametal, improves edge toughness, reliability, and depth-of-cut notch resistance, and then micropolishes the surface to reduce friction and workpiece sticking (BUE). A fine-grained alumina layer accommodates increases in cutting speed, improving productivity, added Baid.

All of the new Beyond inserts are CVD - chemical vapor deposition - coated, but whereas conventional CVD coatings are under tensile stress, Beyond inserts undergo a proprietary postcoat treatment on all surfaces to reduce this stress, improving coating adhesion and reducing microchipping.

“More uniform and reliable wear of the cutting edge results in improved and more consistent tool life,” said Kent Mizgalski, manager, Global Lathe Systems Engineering at Kennametal. “Smoother surfaces also lower frictional forces, another factor that expands applications and permits higher cutting speeds. Together with the right geometry, we’ve seen big improvements in chip control and tool life in both internal and field tests.”

Mecon’s History

New tooling is discussed at Mecon Industries.

One of the original employees when Mecon opened its doors in 1962, Plant Manager Bruno Cecchini has seen Mecon develop two specialties – manufacturing coil-handling equipment such as coil reelers, unreelers, and coil straighteners for the metal fabricating industries, and providing press brake dies.

“We design, manufacture, and test custom press brake tooling for bending any material thickness and material type, from steel and aluminum to exotics like Zircaloy,” said Cecchini. “Our planers range in length from 12 to 30 ft. We also have a 200-ton hydraulic press for tryouts. With our experience, we can provide a single-hit tool that combines bends and reduces the number of hits to complete a part. We also stock a line of standard tools for off-the-shelf delivery.”

Mecon’s customers can order the material type, thickness, and hardness of the dies they want to match the tonnage of their press brake equipment and the jobs they want to handle. If not otherwise specified, Mecon makes press brake tooling from prehardened die steel at 265 to 280 Brinell.

Under the Gun

Recently Mecon faced a significant challenge. A customer, Hodgson Custom Rolling, required a die 14 ft. long and 22 in. wide with an 18-in. die opening for bending 2- to 4-in.-thick plate. The die steel specified was so tough that the tooling Mecon traditionally used on its planing equipment lasted for three strokes before failing.

“We were really under the gun,” said Cecchini. “We had promised a delivery date, and we had a 20,000-lb. piece of steel at 35 Rockwell (323 Brinell) we couldn’t cut.”

Normally, Mecon’s planing machines are the workhorses of its die business, cutting at a maximum 200 FPM, Cecchini said. Lowering speeds didn’t help; the tooling they traditionally used was still failing after three strokes.

That was when Kennametal’s metalworking sales engineer, Dan Atwell, who visited Mecon’s plant with samples of the company’s new line of inserts introduced a solution.  Atwell brought samples of the new Beyond grade KCP40.

According to Mecon machine operator David Filipovic, the old tooling was failing after three strokes, and even on Mecon’s standard brake die steel, inserts would last only 15 or 20 minutes per edge before failure.

“We put Kennametal’s new Beyond grade KCP40 on our planer mill and the final parameters we were running after the testing were 0.750-in. depth of cut, 200 surface feet per minute, and 0.032 feed rate,” said Filipovic. “We were able to run 16-ft. planer strokes for approximately 80 minutes an edge.”

For more information, visit www.kennametal.com and www.mecon.com.