VIDEO: TOOLING UP – SGS Series 77 H-Carb 7 Flute High-Efficiency End Mills

Narrator: Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company that provides real-world insights brought to you by leading industry experts and aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operations.

Eddie: Hey everybody, this is Eddie and welcome to MSC's latest video series Tooling Up featuring our good friends Kyocera SGS. In today's episode we're here to talk about one of SGS's most versatile and exciting tools, the Series 77 H-Carb. And here to tell us about all the amazing things with this tool we have one of our industry leading experts from the SGS team, Chris Dixon. So let's bring Chris on in. Hey Chris, thank you so much for joining us and before we get started today, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for SGS.

Chris: Thanks for having me Eddie. My name is Chris. I am the application engineer for SGS's western region. So I support the sales team from a technical aspect whether it be at the end-user site working with them to optimize applications, digging into programming, finding better solutions to ultimately help them find more value at the spindle.

Eddie: That's wonderful, thank you so much for joining us today and we're going to be talking about a very dynamic tool, the Series 77 H-Carb, but as we get things rolling we're going to pull up a little bit of B-roll and we're going to have Chris tell us about what we're seeing today.

Chris: So the Series 77 or the H-Carb as we refer to it, is a 7-flute tool focused or driven around high-efficiency machining, dynamic milling, adaptive milling, whatever you want to call it, that's what we focus this around. With the 7 flutes, longer lengths of cut and 2 ½-, 3- and 4 x D length of cut configurations, it's really driven for increasing metal removal rates, providing ultimately more performance for the customer. We get there with a series of features we're going to highlight with a 37 degree helix as well as an optimized radial rake. What this boils down to is this tool has a really good shearing capability while also maintaining edge durability for more aggressive cuts and longer run times. It does have a larger core diameter on the 4 x D version of the tool and so that really just adds in stability. With more tools sticking out there, we can still hit some of those more aggressive stepovers and feed rates while maintaining a stable tool.

On the next page you'll see that this is a non-centercutting tool, so in doing that that allowed us to make a more rigid end on the tool which ultimately going back to the last slide gives us more stability, gives a better floor finish on top of being unequally indexed helps cut out some of the chatter and the way we optimize the end work all around just leads to again a more stable tool, better finishes, better perpendicularity from floor to wall and ultimately just a high-performance bang for your buck package.

Eddie: No, it sounds wonderful, and to really highlight some of the capabilities of this tool let's talk about how it performs in specific applications such as outside profiling. What can we talk about there?

Chris: So outside profiling is kind of the meat and bones of what this tool was driven around. This is where you'll be able to get that length of cut, you know, really dove down into the part and with seven flutes, hit material removal rates that really add a lot of profit to the ultimate part that the customer is making. We can hit some pretty aggressive rates and stepovers. Ultimately, like I said, this is the drive of the tool.

Eddie: So what we're seeing here is obviously very impressive, but with that being said Chris, what sets the Series 77 apart from other tools within that space?

Chris: Well traditionally, when you see a high-efficiency milling kind of driven tool, you think of like a 7 to a 10 percent stepover radially and while this dual works great in that, 10 percent is really our target and we go above and beyond that depending on the material and the length of cut you know. We can get up to 20 percent stepover depending on you know if it's easier to machine material and you know are 2 ½ x D. Even with the 4 x D being able to hit 10 percent stepovers, ultimately it's a really large performance gain that a lot of the competitive tools out there just aren't capable of matching.

Eddie: Completely understandable. And another thing that I really would like to hit upon when it comes to the Series 77 is the profile finish. So what can we expect from this type of tool?

Chris: Well you know traditionally, you think of you know finishing tool as a continuous edge. This tool is available with a continuous edge and a chip breaker. One of the main benefits is even with the chip breaker you can still achieve down to a 20 RA finish, so it eliminates in some cases the need for two different tools, one for roughing and finishing. You can do everything with this tool you know, run your heavier stepover at your higher rates to get the material gone and then you come back, slow it down a little bit, and you can get a really high quality finish with that same tool. And then depending on production operations, you can always transition one over to be a rougher as it wears a little bit, plug a new one in to finish. You know it just depends on what your production style is.

Eddie: No, very interesting and when it comes to individual applications that really highlight how the Series 77 performs, how about your trochoidal slotting?

Chris: Well trochoidal slotting is an area that this tool is well suited for especially given the longer length of cut that it's available in. Traditionally, you think of slotting, you take a 1 x D stepdown and a heavier stepover, but with this tool having up to 4 x D we can go in at that full length of cut and use a trochoidal type tool path and get some really large amounts of material moved in a pretty short period of time. And then you come back in with the same tool, finish up your walls and now you're done, you're off to the races. So it adds a lot of capability there as well as on top of that profiling option.

Eddie: Very capable, very versatile, and a very dynamic tool. These are all great things that we've been able to highlight, but one thing I think we haven't talked about is how this is performing in the field now. So do you happen to have any examples that would really be able to highlight and how this is working for the operators that are utilizing it?

Chris: Certainly. You know when it comes to field applications, I always try to tell the customers that you know my job is to sell you a solution and not to sell you a tool and ultimately that's what this tool really is. It's a solution for a lot of different scenarios. We have one case here where this is an aerospace application out on the west coast. We were cutting 13-8MO at around 42 Rockwell C, so a fairly difficult-to-machine material and implementing the H-Carb we were able to cut their cycle time from an hour down to about 20 minutes. We were also able to get over 23 hours of tool life out of one tool running about a 10 percent stepover and almost the full-flute length, so it's a pretty aggressive cut and you know that the tool just kept running which ultimately cut down the cost to the customer from not having to buy as many tools. So you know, with a large cycle time reduction, meaning you know labor as well as reduction, on top of lower tool cost, it accumulated to over a $100,000 savings in a year on this one part for this customer. So across the board it's really a win-win and really highlights that value at the spindle that the Series 77 provides. 

Eddie: Absolutely, we are lowering cost, increasing efficiency and creating value at the spindle, all things that the operator is going to be seeking desperately. So it's wonderful that you're able to provide that. So for those who are looking for more information, not only on the tool that we discussed today but also the other products that Kyocera SGS brings to the market, where can we get that information?

Chris: Head over to our website, it's kyocera-sgstool.com. You'll find all of our product information, descriptions, different configurations that are offered as well as our Tool Wizard which is somewhat of an application advisor. You can go in and it'll give you a good starting point on how to utilize our tools more efficiently, more effectively.

Eddie: Wonderful, so we have options for your tangible tools or your digital guides, Kyocera SGS offers it all, so thank you so much Chris for your time and your insight today and thank all of you for joining us for our latest episode of MSC's Tooling Up featuring Kyocera SGS.

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