Glebar Company has developed a new machine platform capable of processing carbide cutting blanks.
"Grinding carbide is challenging because it is one of the hardest materials on Earth, ranging in hardness between 65 Rc and 85 Rc," said a company spokesperson. "After sintering, carbide has a rough surface finish and chips easily, making it difficult to grind."
"To grind carbide parts, an operator will throughfeed a part across a narrow grinding wheel, applying more pressure and wearing the wheel out faster," continued the spokesperson. "Due to the narrow work wheel, multiple passes are required, occupying skilled operators and accelerating wear on the grinding machine and on the tooling. Legacy machines are extremely large in comparison to the small diameter of the carbide cutting blanks and take up valuable square footage on the manufacturing floor."
Glebar was challenged to deliver a process to grind carbide cutting blanks. Following a customer's spec, the process needed to maintain cylindricity of 2 microns over a 4" long part. The solution was the GT-610 EZ Centerless Grinding Machine. "The GT-610 EZ excels at throughfeed grinding hard materials such as steel, carbide, PCD inserts and technical ceramics while operating on a much smaller footprint than the competition," said the spokesperson.
"The GT-610 EZ uses a twin grip 8-5/8 in. wide grinding wheel set-up, spreading the material removal over a longer span, which results in higher throughput, less aggressive approach that reduces chipping, and a smoother overall surface finish," explained John Bannayan, Chief Technical Officer at Glebar Company.
"Another feature of the GT-610 EZ is its ability to produce G-ratios that can exceed those of machines twice its size," said the spokesperson. When running super abrasives, a variable frequency drive on the work wheel spindle is available to increase wheel surface feet.
In the application on the 0.750" diameter carbide blanks, the roughing operation removed 0.012" and the finish pass removed 0.003", improving on the 2 Rz surface finish requirement. Glebar met the customer's cylindricity spec of 2 microns over the 4" long part. The straightness and roundness of the parts were sub 1.5 microns.
For more information contact:
Glebar Company
565 East Crescent Avenue
Ramsey, NJ 07446
201-337-1500 / 800-235-5122
info@glebar.com
www.glebar.com