Carbide Step Drill

A customer of TMA Tools is a major manufacturer who uses a variety of different sizes of carbide thru-coolant step drills and was having some issues with their carbide step drills failing prematurely in cast iron material.

TMA analyzed the operation and designed a special point geometry to be used in cast iron, and also changed the drills to be helical in design. The customer tested the solution TMA presented to them and found that the hole count per drill more than doubled. Some size drills ran as much as 100,000 holes per drill before requiring re-conditioning.

Since inception of these drills, TMA has further refined point geometries with extra features on the drill point corner to further enhance the tool life and usability. The customer's costs have greatly reduced due to the longer life of these step drills.

Carbide Straight Flute Combination Drill/Chamfer Tool

A customer of TMA Tool Services was performing a drill and chamfer operation in alloy steel using a standard carbide twist drill and a standard chamfer tool. After consulting with TMA, the customer decided to try to combine the operations using a solid carbide straight-flute drill/chamfer combination tool.

After designing and creating an appropriate tool that would meet the customer's needs, tests were performed with fantastic results. The customer has seen a total tool cost savings of 50%, along with improved performance due to the straight-flute design. Additionally, the customer has been able to realize machine-time savings of approximately 400 hours per year due to the elimination of the separate chamfer operation, freeing up valuable machine time for other operations and further reducing costs.