Inlet Tool recently took on a new and exciting project using their own custom built tooling to meet a customer’s specific design needs. Our valued customer needed to utilize a custom mount for a large diameter form drilling head. Since no standard “off the shelf” tooling was available, Inlet’s experienced manufacturing team used their knowledge of custom designed indexable tooling as a start for streamlining this project.
Inlet Tool manufacturers indexable cutting tools, trepanning tools, and deep hole drilling options that are durable and flexible enough for numerous applications. Inlet Tool utilizes multitasking machines for larger, more complex projects. With our multi-tasking machines, we can produce highly accurate tools and shortened lead times for custom designed projects, including large diameter deep hole drilling heads. This particular head is relatively small in comparison to others we have built and repaired.
The original piece used for this head started as a 24” long and 12 ½” diameter slug of 4140 pre-hard steel weighing approximately 845 pounds. Inlet’s use of the conventional engine for drilling operations and Okuma’s Multus B400W five-axis Mill Turn machine for milling operations cut down on setup time dramatically.
Our engineering team designed and developed a custom 3 3/8” indexable drill to drill the deepest hole on the project at 17” deep. We started the rough bore process with a 4 ½” re-bore head down to 15” deep and finished with a 5 7/8” re-bore head down to 13” deep. These re-bore heads produced the desired hole size in one single pass eliminating the need to take multiple passes at lighter depths to create the desired hole.
The holes were produced on an engine lathe, though these processes could have also been efficiently done on the multi-axis machine. Inlet chose to drill these large holes using the engine lathe rather than using the multi-axis machine simply to reduce wear and tear on the newer machine, ensuring a longer lifespan. All the processes after producing the holes on an engine lathe were efficiently performed on a multi-axis Mill Turn.
Because our tooling options here at Inlet Tool are completely customizable, we have become the preferred choice custom for indexable tooling in many industries including the steelmaking, naval, locomotive, mining, and automotive industries. We utilize our extensive experience in tooling development to boost productivity, reduce costs for our customers, and produce exceptional tools. With two generations of tool building under our belt, you can count on Inlet Tool.