Insert gives special performance

With its 130 highly qualified staff members, decades of experience and state-of-the-art technologies in such fields as welding technology, DSD can claim to be one of Europe’s largest service companies for die-casting machines.

In order to maintain this high standard, the company is constantly searching for ways to improve and optimise its production processes so it invited Timm Hennig, application engineer at the Hoffmann Group, to test the brand new Garant turning grade HB 7020 at the company.

Production manager Michael Wächtler, who takes responsibility for the turning shop, was surprised by the performance of the new grade.

“Normally, I initially try to destroy the tool,” he states. “I wasn’t able to do that in this case. On the contrary, we managed to achieve almost perfect cutting parameters with the HB 7020, especially for high cutting speeds. The higher the speed, the better the insert worked.”

Hoffmann says the new sharp-edged, robust turning grade has a comparable counterpart in nature – the shark tooth. The insert’s multilayer coating system makes it possible to achieve maximum cutting parameters and reliability due to a tailor made, innovative gradient carbide substrate similar to a shark tooth with a hard exterior and an elastic core.

DSD uses the HB 7020 mainly for series S355 steels but good results have also been achieved for 42CrMo4 high grade steel and for machining brass.

“The results are truly impressive,” says Mr Wächtler. “With the new insert, we have reduced our throughput times by up to 30%. With the best insert we even managed to achieve a tool life of four hours and this at a cutting speed of almost 400m.”

Nowadays the HB 7020 is being used on a daily basis by DSD, having become an integral part of its production. “I used to order the first inserts individually,” says Mr Wächtler, “but today I have stocks of the HB 7020.”

The Garant insert HB 7020 has impressed not only because of its high cutting speeds in steel but also because of its high wear resistance characteristics. To illustrate this point Mr Wächtler makes a comparison: “A standard insert has a service life of between 15 and 20 minutes. After this, the cutting edge is worn. If I now assume a maximum service life of four hours for a Garant insert, I would have used 16 cutting edges of my previous insert during the same period of time. This means that nowadays we only require one insert instead of four.”

DSD has been successfully cooperating with the Hoffmann Group for many years. This applies to the workshop area as well as the machining department.

Mr Wächtler concludes: “We are always willing to try out new products with Hoffmann because they have, as a rule, always convinced us of their benefits.”

Hoffmann Group www.hoffmann-group.com