VIDEO: TOOLING UP: Taking Metal Removal to New Depths

BRANDON HULL: So the main beneficial feature of the Diver end mill is its capability to ramp and literally dive into the material, plunge into the material, and that really has to do with the gashing at the end of the tool, the geometry that's ground into the end of the tool that provides the clearance, that gives it that aggressive ramping and plunging capability.

Narrator: This video is brought to you by Guhring. From drilling pioneer to complete round tool supplier, nobody offers more. If you're looking for real world insights, tips from leading industry experts, the latest trends in products and technology, you've come to the right place. From MSC Industrial Supply, this is Tooling Up.

TONI NEARY: Hello and welcome to Tooling Up. I'm your host, Toni Neary, and I'm so glad that you've joined us here today. Before I introduce you to today's guest, let me introduce you to the like and subscribe buttons. Go ahead and click them because you don't want to miss a single upcoming episode of Tooling Up. All right, everybody subscribed? Great. Let's get to it. I'm excited to be talking about Diver and Micro Diver end mills today with Brandon Hull. He's the vice president of product management and business development Guhring Inc. Brandon, thanks so much for joining us and welcome to Tooling Up.

BRANDON HULL: Thank you for having me, Toni.

TONI NEARY: So before we dive into diver end mills, did you catch that? Tell me a little bit about how you ended up in manufacturing.

BRANDON HULL: Well, I've always been in manufacturing. Basically ever since high school. I started out as a high school job, part time, working for a neighbor of mine. He owned an archery business, and I worked for him making arrows. Wooden arrows. I would fletch the arrows. We had a thing called a spine tester, and it would bounce the weight of the arrow.

And these arrows were made specifically for competition. And then as I got out of high school, I went through a tool and die program at a local trade school, completed the tool and die program. And then after working as a machinist for about 2 or 3 years, I went back to college again, got my bachelor's degree in manufacturing technology, worked as an automation technician, setting up production machines and fixing production machines for a glass manufacturer, window manufacturer.

And then from there I moved into a sales role with a local distributor in Iowa. And then from there I went to a cutting tool manufacturer and then landed with Guhring, finally.

TONI NEARY: And you've been with growing for 16 years. That's quite an accomplishment. So what has kept you there all these years?

BRANDON HULL: Guhring really has a small feel to it. It's a large global company. But it's still privately owned. We have about 8000 employees worldwide. Our parent company is located in Germany. It was started back in 1898, in Germany. And we opened a subsidiary in the US, in 1978, and have grown it ever since. It's consistently been growing, but today we only have about 365 employees in the US compared to the 8000 worldwide.

And so it does really have a small company, family type vibe to it, which I really, really like.

TONI NEARY: And I think one of the things I was most fascinated by was the R&D and kind of creative side of your business, including you're creating your own carbide and you actually have like chemists on your team. Can you talk a little bit about that?

BRANDON HULL: Yeah, yeah, we are very vertically integrated, meaning, we are very self-reliant. We are one of the largest carbide rod producers in the world. So for round tool carbide tools, round shank carbide tools, we are probably ranked number three in the world in terms of volume for carbide rod. And, we don't just make that carbide material for our own products.

We do sell that material to some of our competitors, and other suppliers throughout the world. And we have a division in Berlin, Germany, that specifically that plant, that's all they do is they produce carbide rod. So, along with the metallurgy side, we have a machine tool division that also designs and manufactures the machines we use in our own production.

TONI NEARY: And for me, that's fascinating. And I think what it does is that puts you on the cutting edge, pun intended. So let's talk a little bit about Diver end mills and what makes them different than other end mills.

BRANDON HULL: So the main beneficial feature of the Diver end mill is, is capability to ramp, and literally dive into the material, plunge into the material. And that really has to do with the gashing at the end of the tool, the geometry that's ground into the end of the tool that provides the clearance, that gives it that aggressive ramping and plunging capability.

Many end mills can ramp into a part. Not many of them can do it at up to a 45 degree angle. And that's the main benefit is its aggressive nature and ramping and plunging. It also has a capability to drill, similar to an actual carbide drill. It can drill up to one times D depth without having to peck.

Most end mills cannot do that. That is a very unique feature of the Diver . The main issue there is chip clogging. So if you don't have enough clearance there at the front of the tool and in the flutes, you're going to clog up chips inside those flutes and typically break the tool.

TONI NEARY: And I think a tool like that must have a cutting edge design, right? So let's talk a little bit about how you designed this to do, you know, the plunging aggressive metal removal as well as funneling all of those pieces out of the way to make sure that you're really getting long wear out of the tools as well.

BRANDON HULL: Yeah. So, you know, we had mentioned our R&D, with the metallurgy side and the carbide raw material side. We also have a large R&D center for tool geometries and performance in Germany. And that's where most of the R&D takes place. Before launching a tool, our colleagues in Germany will come up with a design. They'll test it, they'll go back to the drawing board, come up with another design, test it, and they'll go through multiple iterations of this. So we always have a goal in mind of what we want that tool to do and the benefits that we want it to give to the customer as a finished product.

While they were going through this process, it wasn't just about the carbide, it wasn't just about the tool geometry. It wasn't just about the coating. It's putting all of those things together. So typically they will come up with a tool design. They'll throw a bunch of different coatings on the same geometry on that tool, and then test them against each other to see which coating works the best across multiple applications. You may have one coating that works the best in stainless steel, one coating that works the best in tool steels, one coating that works the best in cast iron. But the trick is finding the balance that works across the board for most materials.

TONI NEARY: So Brandon, we talked a little bit about the technology. Let's talk about the application, because I think when we talked earlier was aggressive ramping and slotting and high speed machining. What are some of the applications that you're seeing where this product is really just head and shoulders above, above the rest?

BRANDON HULL: That's one of the beautiful things about the Diver is as we had previously mentioned, it really excels at ramping and plunging applications or pocketing applications. But it is a very versatile tool. So even during a traditional machining application like slotting, it can slot very, very well. It can ramp into a part to create a pocket rather than having to drill a hole.

And it can plunge straight down to start creating the pocket. It can side mill, it can lay down a good finish. If you want to use it as a finishing tool. We have long tools, short tools, three flute tools for flute tools, tools with welding flats, tools without welding flats. So we have a lot of different options for the customer depending upon the type of machine they're running and the type of applications they're running.

TONI NEARY: You've talked a little bit about the carbide rods, and I know obviously there's a lot that goes into that. But tell us a little bit more about how you think that affects the end products that you're making as well.

BRANDON HULL: Yeah. So when you're trying to make a kind of a do-it-all type tool, the raw carbide substrate, that's where you start, right? You've got to grind that tool out of that raw carbide rod, and you've got to have a perfect combination of hardness and toughness. Hardness is what gives that tool wear resistance and heat resistance.

And then the toughness is what allows that tool to take an impact and take abuse without chipping and just crumbling apart.

TONI NEARY: Thank you so much, Brandon. This has been amazing. You're just a wealth of knowledge and we appreciate all the work that Guhring is doing out there to make metal removal even better.

BRANDON HULL: You're welcome. Thank you.

TONI NEARY: It was great hanging out with Brandon today, and if you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did, and you want to make sure that you see more discussions just like this one, please subscribe to our channel. To find out more about Guhring Diver and Micro Diver end mills, visit www.mscdirect.com/products/guhring. Thanks and we'll see you next time on Tooling Up.

Narrator: What more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the Tooling Up video playlist to hear tips that can take your company to the next level. And subscribe to our channel so you won't miss out.