MACH 2024: Horn unveils five new tooling solutions

Paul Horn, the solid carbide tooling, carbide insert and toolholder manufacturer headquartered in Tübingen, Germany, has supplied more than 200,000 special tooling solutions over the years and currently offers 25,000 standard products, including five due to be introduced to the UK and Irish markets at MACH 2024.

The wholly-owned UK subsidiary of Horn Cutting Tools will be at the show to explain the reasons behind its launches and will also exhibit a broad cross section of the manufacturer's extensive tooling range.

Bore superfinishing

At the show an addition to the Horn Supermini boring, grooving and chamfering system will be announced, a variant with a precision-ground rake face designed for producing ultra-fine bores. The ground cutting edge is free from notches when viewed at a magnification of x200 and the tool can be used to machine components having an inside diameter from just 0.3mm.

Sharp insert geometry ensures process reliability, even with very small infeed and cutting feed rates. The specially developed coating is suitable for stainless steels, non-ferrous metals and other metals.

The Supermini Type 105 system insert requires only one toolholder for well over 1,000 insert variants, which applies equally to left-hand and right-hand versions. The carbide inserts are available coated or uncoated in various grades for a variety of applications, including hard machining up to 66 HRC.

Stainless steel milling

Horn has developed a new, solid carbide milling cutter range for machining stainless steels, widely used in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as in the watchmaking and other precision engineering industries.

Due to their geometry and efficient chip breaking, the mills are suitable for machining numerous other materials as well. The combination of substrate, macro and micro geometry, and IG3 coating exhibits high cutting performance and long tool life. The coating in particular offers high temperature resistance for machining steels alloyed with chromium, nickel and molybdenum.

The tools are offered in two types from stock. The DSHPR variant is suitable as both a finishing and a roughing tool and the geometry is adapted for trochoidal machining and plunging.

Type DSR, with its very sharp cutting-edge geometry and short design, is suitable for very small parts and unstable workholding conditions, such as are frequently encountered in the medical and watchmaking industries.

Thread whirling

A new, high-performance, carbide grade from Horn, the SG3P, presents enhanced possibilities in terms of performance and tool life when whirling medical screws. It enables shorter cycle times for thread production thanks to higher cutting values, including when processing materials that traditionally are difficult to machine.

In addition, the combination of an ultra-fine-grain carbide powder and a high-temperature-resistant coating raises process reliability and improves component quality. In-house coating of the inserts enables fast delivery times, and the carbide grade is available for all standard Horn thread whirling systems.

The production of bone screws must be carried out using a metalcutting process, as the material for this type of screw must not be compressed, as is the case when thread rolling, for example. Titanium in particular, which is widely used in the human body due to its biocompatibility, tends to burn if the material is unduly compressed. As a thread cutting process for the medical industry, thread whirling on Swiss-type lathes has been a standard procedure for many years.

Boring bar damping

A long overhang can cause a turning tool to oscillate when boring internal geometries. In addition to causing chatter marks on the surface of the machined component, the vibrations can lead to a significant reduction in tool life. For unfavourable length-to-diameter ratios, even damped boring bars may vibrate under certain conditions.

To help mitigate these difficulties, Horn has introduced a boring bar with adjustable damping so it can be set to match the amplitude of the oscillation generated by the machining process. Precise adjustment enables vibration-free turning, resulting in better surface quality of the machined component and a significant increase in insert life.

As standard, Horn offers the boring bars from stock in length-to-diameter ratios of 5:1 and 8:1. Higher ratios are available as special tools. In the case of grooving, Horn offers the S224 double-edged system.

Grades for discs

Horn is also launching a new tool range for manufacturing brake discs economically. It includes solid CBN (cubic boron nitride) ISO inserts, mainly used for cast iron machining, and CBN-tipped full-radius and shaped inserts. The grade has no metallic bonding phase and therefore has the highest hot hardness of all cutting materials.

Horn offers the solid CBN ISO S turning insert with eight cutting edges for roughing and finishing. Stable tool carriers are included in the offering and, depending on the operation and metal removal rate, in excess of 1,000 cast iron brake discs can be machined per insert corner.

Additionally, Horn has introduced two different tool solutions for machining the heat dissipation grooves in the discs. The CBN-tipped S117 profile grooving insert is ideal in terms of cutting speed and longevity for large batch production.

During the process, each groove is produced in just under two seconds in a single operation. For greater flexibility, Horn's S229 full-radius, CBN-tipped inserts offer the option of copy turning the grooves in around four seconds. Regrinding and re-tipping are possible with both types.

Horn Cutting Tools
www.phorn.co.uk
Hall 6, Stand 210