West Manufacturing News • March 2014

M ANUFACTURING N EWS WEST Vol. 3 No. 3 March 2014 Serving Since 2012 Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington & Wyoming Feature Editorial Quality Control Digital Optical Comparator Extended travel horizontal comparator features a 36” X-axis travel.... See Pg. 14 Complete Online Digital Editions at www.mfgnewsweb.com A Laser Focus on Growth Apex Engineering and HM Dunn Aerospace Form Super Tier 2 Aerospace Company HM Dunn Company, Inc. and Apex Engineering International, LLC (AEI), portfolio companies of Gridiron Capital, LLC, have announced the merger of the two companies to form HM Dunn AeroSystems, Inc., a verti-cally integrated Super Tier 2 aerospace manufacturer. HM Dunn’s CEO, Phil Milazzo, will serve as the CEO of the combined entity, and AEI’s former CEO, Jeff Landreth, will lead the busi-ness strategy and proposal development Continued on Page 74 Material Handling Finishing Mill Unloaders Quickly and automatically remove ferrous parts to improve productivity.... See Page 26 Wilkins Design & Manufacturing, a one-stop shop for contract manufac-turing, including laser cutting, sheet metal, CNC milling and turning, ro-botic welding, and turnkey manufac-turing, recently acquired the Bystronic ByStar 4020 laser system for quick pro-totypes and large production runs. “ByStar 4020’s combination of highly efficient ByLaser 4400 watt laser source and high machine dynamics (with a table size of 80 inches by 160 inches), makes it the most cost effective and productive high-speed laser cut-ting system in its class,” said a com-pany spokesperson. “This laser cutting tool will expand our capacity and allow us to cut light sheet to heavy plate and provide for precision tube cutting as well,” said Paul Wilkins, President of Wilkins De-sign & Manufacturing. “The cutting in tooling feature also assists in pre-fix-turing welded assemblies.” Wilkins Design & Manufacturing develops efficient manufacturing methods through the use of special Continued on Page 74 Custom Machine-Ready Blanks TCI Precision Metals has been pro-viding manufacturers with precision machine-ready blanks for over 50 years. “There are still many successful shops who do not know what machine-ready blanks are exactly, or if and when they should be considered,” said a company spokesperson. “The follow-ing is meant to shed light on the sub-j e c t a n d p ro v i d e s o m e t h o u g h t provoking questions to help shops de-termine whether or not precision blanks are right for the next job.” What are Custom Machine-Ready Blanks? Custom machine-ready blanks are Continued on Page 74 Applying Technology Huge Pipe Keyways Machined using unique angle head saves 184 hours in set-up and machining time.... See Page 40 Hurco Introduces New Horizontal Boring Mill Hurco announced the addition of a hori-zo nt al boring mill, HBMX55i, to its prod-uct line of 50 CNC ma-chine tools. The HBMX55i horizontal boring mill has a small footprint (18 feet 4.37 inches x 17 feet 3.28 inches) especially con-sidering the large work envelope (55.1 x 55.7 x 43.3 inches). The HBMX55i has a W-stroke of 19 inches, a geared head spindle Hurco HBMX55i horizontal boring mill. with two speeds, hard-ened box ways and weighs just over 21 type boring mills, the HBMX55i has more tools and includes more peripherals tons (42,328 pounds). Continued on Page 74 “Compared to similar universal New Laser Cutting Technology Tool-Flo Manufacturing, Inc. has now added PCD and PCBN to its line of products. “Using PCD-polycrystalline dia-mond and PCBN-polycrystalline cubic boron nitride cutting tools allows for longer tool life when cutting very abra-sive materials such as graphite, hard rubber, plastics, carbon, fiberglass com-ponents, ceramics, wood, copper, bronze, brass and aluminum alloys where other cutting tools will wear out Continued on Page 76 MATC Teaching Tools Education / Training Milwaukee Area Technical College acquires eight Clausing machines with Fagor 8055 CNC controls... See Page 48 Additive Manufacturing Hybrid Machine Adds and removes material in one set-up using laser metal deposition technology... See Page 66 Subscription Changes: To make name, address subscription changes contact: • Phone: 800-375-8488 • Fax: 817-488-7813 • E-mail: info@mfgnewsweb.com • www.mfgnewsweb.com CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED Gross Publications, Inc. WEST MANUFACTURING NEWS P.O. Box 847 Grapevine, Texas 76099-0847 U.S.A. DALLAS, TX PERMIT 4245 PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE Advertiser Index Page 61 PAID