Tracking

Latest

Article

Manufacturing Costs of 3D Printing vs Urethane Casting vs Injection Molding

3D printing, urethane casting, and injection molding: they’re each suited to different stages of the product development and production process, but how do you know when to use each one? A few factors go into this decision: cost, lead time, and quality. In this article, we’ll discuss indirect and direct costs and lead times for […]

Webinar

On Demand

Solving 7 Common Challenges for CNC Machining Aerospace Components

Nowhere is the precision and quality of CNC machining more important than in the aerospace and aeronautics industries. But crafting components that are both light enough to fly and strong enough to land requires milling a variety of exotic materials to incredibly tight tolerances. In this webinar, experts discuss the challenges of designing and manufacturing […]

Article

Enhance Your 3D Printing Workflow With CNC Machining in Post-Processing

If you’ve ever designed and 3D printed a part that required high dimensional accuracy, you were probably disappointed with the outcome. Maybe a bolt didn’t fit into a 3D printed hole, or a 3D printed bracket didn’t fit into its intended recess. Whatever the dimensional intention, it’s likely that the 3D printed part didn’t serve […]

Article

CNC Machining Copper Alloy EDM Electrodes

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is an amazing technology that can manufacture complex shapes in a variety of conductive materials — and it produces tightly toleranced parts with excellent finishes. EDM is a subtractive electro-thermal manufacturing method that utilizes electricity to erode the surface of a part.  Basics of Electrical Discharge Machining In general, EDM can […]

Article

CNC Operations and Applications

CNC or Computer Numerical Control is, by itself, useless. Without hardware to execute the commands, CNC is nothing more than an array of vectors stored on a drive. Once CNC is married to a machine operation, however, the manufacturing possibilities are practically limitless! What is CNC? What exactly is Computer Numerical Control? Essentially, it’s when […]

Article

Scaling Up from Prototype to Production using 3D Printing, Urethane Casting and Injection Molding

What do you do when you feel like you’re ready to move on from prototyping, but not quite ready to make production quantities of your parts? Sounds like you need a way to bridge the gap! Bridge production is your answer – using manufacturing processes that are suitable for low volumes but can give you […]

Article

CNC Machining vs. Manual Machining

Humans do not like change. Believe it or not, after calculators were invented, some people refused to give up their slide rules. Similarly, CNC machining was invented decades ago, yet there are still those who prefer manual machining techniques. This preference persists despite CNC technology’s ability to manufacture and replicate precision parts that are fully […]

Article

What You Need to Know About Injection Molding Gates

Is your injection molding project ready for success? Sure, you’ve thought about most of the injection molding manufacturing process. You’ve designed your mold with care, researched and selected the right material, and finished your CAD file or part drawing. But have you considered the type of injection molding gate to use? A gate might seem […]

Article

Introduction to CNC Milling Cuts and Toolpaths

This article is a companion to Getting Started with CNC, an introduction to the different types of CNC milling machines and the software used to design the parts they produce. Here, we’re going to discuss CNC milling terminology, toolpaths, and common operations. Chip Formation You may have seen images like Figure 1, which show how […]

Article

Finding the Right Secondary Operations After CNC Machining, Part III: Hardware Installation

This is Part III in our series on CNC machining secondary operations, where we’ll be discussing hardware installations — we covered heat treatments and post-processing finishes in Parts I and II.  Hardware installation is an essential step for joining multiple parts to create the final product and is always performed after heat treating and post-processing […]