Aerospace blisk machining with Quickgrind barrel cutters

Recently speaking with Quickgrind’s Technical Sales Engineer Mr Graeme Hogg, MTDCNC’s Joe looks into how the innovative cutting tools from the Tewkesbury manufacturer can improve productivity on aerospace components. 

Looking at an aerospace blisk, Graeme tells MTDCNC: “We’ve been developing this aerospace part with a software company. We are looking at a 75% saving on the cycle times by applying barrel tools as opposed to ball nosed tooling. People say to us all the time ‘is this a gimmick?’ but it certainly isn’t.”

“If you put barrel cutter technology onto a part, you get massive savings. It’s not the answer to everything, but where it can be applied, it makes a huge difference.  On t his aerospace blisk, just by changing from ball nose tools to barrel cutters instantly achieved a 75% saving in cycle time. There are standard geometry tools used such as square end and ball nose, but where the conical barrel tool is applied with its specific set of machining strategies, the savings are significant.”

“Machined in a single set-up, the machining time for the blisk was 3 hours and 20 minutes. The 75% saving is huge as this blisk is machined in volume batches with lots of parts machined each day. ‘Minutes are money’ and we don’t tend to do the easy jobs. We4 go in to customers as trouble-shooters. We like to get amongst the most challenging materials and toughest parts and push the latest technology.”

“This year, our technology focus is around 5-axis machining and conical barrel tools, lollipop tools, lens tools and other unique geometry application tools. It’s taken a while, but we are really now getting a good name and reputation for what we can do. This follows our ‘Infinite Possibilities’ philosophy whereby if you have a challenging workpiece, we’ll provide the solution. We always encounter manufacturers that are compromising on their tooling, using products out of catalogues. We don’t really use catalogues and that is where we are different. We do have a standard range, but anybody wanting a slightly different length or geometry – that is where we specialise. We don’t look at this as ‘special tooling’ for us it’s customising a standard product,” concludes Graeme.