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CASE IN POINT 42 PRODUCTION MACHINING :: DECEMBER 2016 e problem was one of raw material removal: when finished, the Inconel plates weighed in at 30 pounds (13.6 kg), 90-percent lighter than their starting weight. Mr. Frieze knew there weren't enough hours in the day to remove that much material using conventional carbide tooling, not if he were to meet the deadline. He needed a better solution. Seminar Payoff Earlier that year, Mr. Frieze and several of his coworkers had attended a learning event sponsored by a local chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA) at the Kennametal technical center in the nearby town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. ere, he met product manager Matthieu Guillon, who introduced him to a cutting tool that Mr. Frieze was initially skeptical of. "It looked and felt like a plastic toy end mill," he laughs. at tool was Kennametal's series of four- and six-flute ceramic end mills. Constructed of SiAlON KYS40 grade ceramic and designed specifically for roughing in nickel- based, high-temperature alloys, these end mills often out-produce carbide by as much as 20 times. Mr. Guillon says, "We recommend a starting speed of 825 sfm up to 3,300 sfm (250 to 1,000 m/min) and feed rates starting at around 0.001 IPT (0.03 mm) depending on the tool diameter and other conditions. Despite the far higher cutting speeds, we have some customers who have reported two to three times more tool life than carbide." Stellar didn't have an immediate use for the ceramic tools, but after making some quick feed and speed calculations, Mr. Frieze knew they would be an effective solution given the right application. Several months later, that application arrived with the Inconel plates. He called Mr. Guillon to say he might have a good use for those ceramic cutters they were talking about and wondered how soon he could get some. Skeptical to the Last Minute Mr. Frieze remained skeptical. He'd tried indexable ceramic cutting tools on both milling and turning jobs in the past and had mediocre results. In this case, however, he was willing to try anything if it meant meeting the customer's deadline. When Mr. Guillon arrived a few days later with the ceramic end mills, Mr. Frieze followed Kennametal's feed and speed recommendations to the letter, crossed his fingers and pushed cycle start. "We weren't certain what would happen, so he started out with a block of test material," he says. "You don't