Solid Carbide Round Tools

According to Yair Bruhis, YG-1 Tool Co. is one of the world’s largest consumers of high-speed steel (HSS) and one of the top three consumers of cemented carbide raw materials. YG-1, with Canadian headquarters in Burlington, Ontario, produces around 3 million to 4 million solid carbide end mills per month in 10 grades of carbide in its manufacturing facilities which are spread out in South Korea, U.S., Mexico, Turkey and Germany.

“Most of the end mills that we manufacture are standard products from catalog, but we also manufacture special tools for specific applications and materials,” said Bruhis. YG-1 uses various types of tooling materials, carbide, ceramic and High Speed (HSS) and powder metal (PM). Tooling choices range from special solid-carbide grades for taking lighter cuts on hardened steel for mold and die parts to geometries, coatings, edge prep and surface prep that are more suitable for softer materials like titanium. Everything depends on the customer’s application,” said Bruhis, who develops tools for aerospace, power generation and medical industry as well as automotive. “Most of the round tools that you see in the market today are carbide tools because of the introduction of new machine technology which can run so much faster and is steady. However, YG-1 is one of the very few companies left manufacturing HSS cobalt tools. These are required for older machines and for large diameters, inch and-a-quarter and larger tools,” Bruhis said.

“High-speed machining allows end-users to take very light cuts that can eliminate heat and edge chipping of the tool. As a result, tools last longer and the workpiece doesn’t suffer from heat damage or distortion. Sometimes, you can’t do that because you don’t have the right machine or the right part or the right program. My challenge is to constantly fit the tool to the machine technology,” said Bruhis. “When you are talking about Tier One companies like Boeing and Airbus or GE Aviation for engines, products need to be certified through a lengthy process of testing. For one tool for a specific engine, it took two years to approve the tool. It involved a lot of testing, at various cutting conditions and tool life. Once the tool is certified for that part, it will not be changed easily. There would have to be some quality issue or failure of the part or some pricing change to justify new testing. For medical certification with the FDA, the same is true. It’s almost impossible to change tooling,” said Bruhis.

Among its recent product offerings, YG-1 has started manufacturing ceramic end mills for Inconel and Waspaloy aerospace engine applications. YG also manufactures a high-performance solid carbide end mill, its V7PlusA end mill with four and six flutes and with a wide choice of flute lengths and corner radii. It is designed for high-performance machining of stainless and titanium. YG-1 has designed a new solid carbide end mill called the TitaNox-Power HPC, with five flutes for titanium alloys, stainless steels and Inconel machining.

The Alu-Power family of aluminum machining end mills includes the Alu-Power HPC for high-speed machining, the Alu-Power two- and three-flute end mills for general machining of aluminum and the Alu-Power HPC chip breaker roughers for roughing aluminum and nonferrous materials.

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