Revolutionize your Shop with Tap Testing

Milling is the largest cutting segment accounting for 40.2% of all tools purchased. It also removes the most material and therefore has the largest impact on your profitability. It is the most difficult of all metalworking applications and is prone to chatter. 

With tap testing and Dashboards, you will know where every tool assembly in your shop wants to run. Setup times will be slashed. You will spend more time making parts. If someone brings you a new tool to try, you won't have to tie up valuable spindle time. Tap test it and know immediately if it is better or not. 

Ever quote a job and after winning it find out you can't run the tools as fast as you thought? Ever lose a job because your quote speeds were too conservative? No more, if you have Dashboards of your milling tool assemblies. You will know before you bid how they will perform. 

Use VirtualRunoff® to compare up to four tap tested tool assemblies at a time to find which one will perform the best for your current application. Use the air cutting factor to adjust MRR for different tool path strategies. You can use VirtualRunoff with your tool library to search and compare tool assemblies and machines direct from the Viewer app.   

A comparison of six premium toolholders holding the same endmill in the same machine yielded performance that ranged 5X from the best to the worst. That means your machine could run five time better or five times worse solely based on the choice of toolholder. Tap testing will tell you the answer in minutes.

Controlling chatter and creating stable, robust processes will reduce the need for safety stocks in vending machines and in your tool crib. Consumption will be more predictable and consistent month to month.

The majority of the time the tool is more flexible than the part. Stabilizing the tool is enough. However, as fixtures become more extended from the table and are made of less rigid materials like aluminum, you can also tap test the part to find speeds that are stable for both the tool and fixture.

If you use resharpening or special tools, tap testing is vital. You can tap test new and resharpened endmills to find a stable speed for both so both can be co-mingled in inventory. No more huge performance drop offs with regrinds. Special tools have no speed and feed data. Tap testing will give you the correct parameters before the first cut.

In this study the same tool was compared using speeds and feeds recommended by the chart in the manufacturer's catalog. The tool chattered and need to slow down to be stable. The same tool was tap-tested and the Dashboard provided parameters that improved metal removal by a factor of five.

If you have to move a job you can't simply post  the program to a different machine. The stable speeds and feeds will be different. Instead of spending hours or days trying to find them through trial and error, you can instantly with a tap test kit and Dashboards.

Because of marketplaces like Xometry, the industry is moving away from a model where you calculate your costs and bid on a job to one where the price is pre-determined by an algorithm and you have to decide if you can make it for that at a profit. Even if your customer is not using a marketplace you can bet they are looking at one to check your price. Make sure you can beat the algorithm's cycle times by using tap testing and Dashboards.