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Marine Supplier Meets Tricky Tolerances With Presetter And Measuring Machine

For its supercharged six-cylinder Verado outboard motor range, Mercury Marine (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin) set and met multiple new tolerances. One of the trickier tooling tolerances had to do with the valve seat boring tools. The company's Mazak machining centers incorporate 15 of these long, narrow, multi-insert tools to finish machine the 24-valve seats, intake and exhaust in the one-piece aluminum cylinder head. Because valve clearances are factory-adjusted and are designed to remain within tolerance for several thousand hours, close machining tolerances are essential.

Turning Without Rotating The Part

For large or unbalanced parts, this machining center can perform turning or boring operations using its programmable U axis.

A Double-Depth Hole Machining Custom Macro

 All machining center controls come with a set of helpful hole-machining canned cycles. Most control manufacturers use G codes from G81 through G89 to name them (G81 for drilling, G82 for counter-boring, G83 for peck drilling and so on).

The Multi-Process Machine Mindset

Installing a machine tool that combines milling, turning, boring and other processes changed this job shop’s outlook.

Twist Drill Point Grinding And Inspection

Small-Hole Drilling

Milling On A Grinding Machine

A grinding machine is not a machining center, but it can sometimes take on milling and drilling (or even turning) to make the overall process more efficient.

Drill And Deburr In One Pass

Unattended Honing On A Vertical Chucker

An air-gage-monitored honing system added to an inverted vertical spindle chucking lathe allows unattended turning, boring and honing on one machine for greater process flexibility.

Tool Presetting Ensures Tool Quality While Saving Time

The Edon, Ohio, plant of Metaldyne (Plymouth, Michigan) produces one of the most complex parts on an automobile: the steering knuckle. Irregularly shaped with a variety of surfaces and holes to mill, drill and bore, steering knuckles provide a machining challenge that usually requires some finesse to meet.