Page 25 - MetalForming December 2010

A Kelly Fabricators tends to tooling while overseeing one of the two CNC turret punch presses the firm operates. The presses fabricate 22-gauge to 1⁄4-in. aluminum-alloy and carbon- and stainless-steel sheet.
Deye, who owns the company along withhistwobrothersJonandJeff.“And in other cases, requiring operators to move the punched blanks to shears for parting just added wasteful material handling to the process.”
Part separating took a significant turn for the good four years ago when the firm invested in a new slitting tool for its CNC turret press—the Rolling Pincher, part of the Wilson Wheel fam- ily of products from Wilson Tool, White Bear Lake, MN.
“The Rolling Pincher (which scores the sheetmetal so an operator can eas- ily and quickly snap parts out) has allowed us to mothball one of our shears, says Jon Deye, a company vice president (Tony works in sales and mar- keting at the company). “And, the tool has allowed us to use our auto load- unload system much more extensively.”
Adds Tony Deye: “The wheel gives us flexibility to meet shrinking lead time requirements from our customers. It fits our lean-manufacturing strategy to eliminate waste from our processes, and to find ways to do more with our exist- ing equipment. And, the wheel gives us great repetitive accuracy.” Wilson Tool rates the Rolling Pincher for slitting stainless steel 0.8 to 1.5 mm, mild steel from 0.8 to 2.0 mm, and aluminum from 0.8 to 2.5 mm, with a minimum radius of 500 mm.
Improving Work Flow
An added benefit of scoring and snapping parts out rather than shearing to separate parts has been improved material utilization, say the Deye broth- ers. “This has been particularly impor- tant when fabricating highly polished aluminum sheet for our lighting cus- tomers,” says Tony.
Removing a shear from its equip- ment lineup also paid dividends for the company (one shear remains, to handle thicker material).
“By red-tagging a shear, we cleared floor space and were able to rearrange our equipment to optimize work flow,” says Tony. Many of the parts fabricated on the turret presses flow to press brakes for forming, and then on to assembly operations.
“The increase in efficiency and pro- ductivity has been significant, Tony continues. “For example, we were able to move a secondary tapping station and fastener-insertion operation from the back of the plant to a location more inline with the flow of production, between the turret presses and press brakes.”
Setup Tips for Using the Rolling Pincher
Fabricators considering using the Wilson Rolling Pincher slitting tool might find these tips, provided by
Murata Machinery, of interest.
• The CNC turret-press operator must recognize the orientation of the wheel when loading it into an auto-index station. Programming is based on this orientation, and improper setup can cause the wheel to run sideways, dam- aging the wheel. Unless the station or holder restricts the direction of instal- lation, load the tool at 0 deg so that it can run in the plus or minus direction. • The dies must be free to compress downward. If used in an auto-index station where the retaining ring holds the die on the upper portion, it should not be tightened down on the die. The upper portion of the die must be able to compress downwards to expose the tool
for cutting.
• Remove the wheel from the turret
after each program, if it is not to be used again. Leaving a wheel in an auto-index station can damage the wheel.
• Always start the wheel on the mate- rial, never off the edge of the sheet or in a punched hole.
• Never cross-over holes with the wheel, as this can cause damage to the wheel.
• When using spring-style tooling, verify that the overall tool length is around 8.20 in. If the tool is too short, the machine may lack sufficient stroke to adjust the tool down using the machine control. MF
www.metalformingmagazine.com
METALFORMING / DECEMBER 2010 23