There are a couple of old sayings that play big in machining: “Get it right the first time,” and “you get what you pay for.” In today’s manufacturing, shops have neither the time nor the money to take several passes to get an application right, and trying to cut corners with your tooling will cost you in the end.
Ultimately, it’s all about cost per hole, and there are several variables that figure into that calculation. The price of the new tool and any regrinds that will be needed are the first line items. However, regrinding is not always an option. Some tools can be reground and put back into service up to a dozen times. Others, either due to a specific application requirement or a customer’s design, are one-and-done propositions. Once the initial purchase price and regrinding costs (if applicable) are calculated, divide by the number of holes the tool cut.
For accuracy, shops also must include the cost of downtime, or, inversely, costs saved by keeping their machines running. Tool changeovers and breakage take time, and time is money.
Shops should avoid the temptation to blindly save money on a tool’s initial price. Defaulting to that less expensive tool may have saved some money up front, but how much did it save? And on closer inspection, did it actually cost you money over the entire production run?
A quality cutting tool:
- Provides better surface finishes
- Improves tool life
- Reduces scrap
- Minimizes or eliminates unacceptable parts
- Delivers less downtime
In the final analysis, an inexpensive tool might cost more in downtime and regrinding costs while cutting fewer holes.
One West Ohio Tool customer, for example, found that its overall production costs were being hit hard by using standard carbide drills. By switching to our innovative EdgeX4 tool, that customer extended its tool life by 4,000% (yes, four thousand!), drove cost per hole down from $0.007 to $0.001 and generated a 93% savings.
West Ohio Tool has been custom designing carbide, PCD and CBN tools and building relationships with its customers for more than 30 years. Our process involves getting to know our customers and working with them side-by-side to solve a problem. By gaining a complete understanding of the application, machining parameters, and workpiece materials we do more than just fill an order. Our talented team can reverse engineer a tool from a part print, combine multiple tools into one for greater efficiency or create an entirely different custom cutting tool solution.
In short, with West Ohio Tool, our customers get what they pay for so they can get it right the first time.
