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Groove Milling Cuts Down Cycle Time for Inconel Part W hen a shop tries to outsource a part, but no vendors want to take on the job, it's time for that shop to fgure out how to machine the job on its own. Tat's what Cambron Engineering (Bay City, Michigan) had to do with a job. Cycle time reduction for a particularly vexing feature on the Inconel parts became a priority. A chance encounter with Horn Application Engineer Brett Kischnick brought about a new tooling approach that cut cycle time from 59 seconds to 10 seconds Edited by Lori Beckman for the feature, taking out 19 hours of the part's 80 hours total machining time. Te two parts are Inconel 600 (nickel, chromium, iron) plate, about 8 feet in diameter and 1.875 inches thick, to be used as tube sheets in a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, an ideal application for this strong, heat/corrosion resistant material. Each disc must be drilled through, with 1,400 1.5-inch-diameter holes, each with two 0.126-inch (wide) by 0.015-inch (deep) grooves milled into the circumfer- ence of each bore. It's a touchy and tough piece with the material alone worth about $60,000, according to Cambron Tool Engineer Bryon Christilaw, but it's well within Cambron's capability. Cambron machines these parts on a 25-hp Kuraki boring mill, and the interpolated grooving cuts were particularly CASE IN POINT 40 PRODUCTION MACHINING :: DECEMBER 2014 :: ABOVE: Bryon Christilaw (right), tool engineer for Cambron Engineering, monitors the work of new Horn USA 12-fute groove milling cutters with company representative Brett Kischnick.