Form Grooving Tools Guarantee Defined Roughness

LAUFER GmbH is a medium-sized family business in the South of Germany. With around 80 employees, LAUFER manufactures complex turned parts from all common materials in the diameter range from 1 to 50 mm and also complete assemblies on request. The main focus is on parts under 20 mm for precision engineering, the automotive industry, mechanical engineering and other demanding sectors. LAUFER's machinery covers a production area of around 4,000m2 and includes both, single-spindle machines and modern multi-spindle automatic lathes for high-volume production. Optionally, turned parts can be refined by further processes, 100% camera-tested and supplied in specific packaging.

LAUFER customers appreciate the high-quality micro-turned parts and trust in the reliability and consistency of the German company. When selecting suppliers, LAUFER therefore relies on a close cooperation and appreciates regional partners who have the same quality awareness. For the supply of precision tools for turning, drilling, milling and broaching, LAUFER has a long-standing partnership with the company Dieterle from Rottweil, Germany.

"What we particularly appreciate about Dieterle is that, when problems arise, we are provided with competent solutions by reliable contact partners," comments Anton Abermeth, who is responsible for technical purchasing at LAUFER. "This means that even complex projects can be implemented quickly and without any complications," he continues.

_{From right: Anton Abermeth (Technical Purchasing, LAUFER), Alexander Efinger (Team Leader CNC Single Spindle, LAUFER), Karl-Heinz Pfenning (Head of Form Grooving Tools, Dieterle)}

_{Roughness measurement at LAUFER}

One of the latest projects of the companies LAUFER and Dieterle deals with the production of turned parts with a defined roughness of R_a 0.6 - 1.6. This concerns pin sealing plugs for cooling channels in engine blocks, which are used in the automotive industry as well as in aerospace and machine construction (especially in agricultural machinery). These sealing elements are used to reliably seal auxiliary holes for the coolant flow by means of the tension/expansion principle. The sealing plugs are inserted into corresponding sleeves and must withstand high pressure (up to 500 bar). The surface roughness of the sealing plug guarantees a perfect fit and thus ensures functionality. The turned parts have a diameter of 3.6 mm with a length of 39 mm and are manufactured from machining steel 60 SPb 22 on a Tornos Deco 10 in quantities of 1.2 million per year.

"The defined surface of these turned parts is imperative and poses a particular challenge," explains Alexander Efinger, Team Leader CNC Single Spindle at LAUFER. "In order to ensure continuous roughness, Dieterle profiled corresponding form grooving inserts for us, which guarantee a process-reliable production of the filigree contour. Compared to conventional production, we were not only able to improve quality, but also achieve considerable time savings. Thanks to the selection of an optimal coating, in which Dieterle supported us, we now achieve a service life of over 20,000 units," he continues.

Form grooving inserts of type FS and the matching tool holders of type ANF are used here. This flexible tooling system was specially designed by Dieterle for the cost-effective production of small, complex turned parts. In addition to customer-specific profiled grooving inserts, which are very attractively priced due to the small-format solid carbide profile blanks, the standard program includes insert geometries for grooving & turning, grooving of circlips according to DIN 471, full-radius grooving, face grooving and, on request, also for thread turning of partial and full profiles.

"Our ANF system can be used universally and offers with customer-specific profiled grooving inserts an enormous potential for considerable time savings with higher process reliability. Of course, the individual conditions at the customer's site have to be considered, and this is where our decades of experience in the area of form grooving are of particular benefit to our customers," emphasizes Karl-Heinz Pfenning, Head of Form Grooving Tools at Dieterle.

_{System ANF with profiled form grooving insert ensures continuously equal roughness on the turned part}