Forming tools guarantee defined surface roughness

For the production of turned parts for engine blocks, a manufacturer relies on forming tools from a supplier of special tools. It is important that a defined surface roughness of the turned parts can be guaranteed.

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

Laufer's customers value the high-quality micro-turned parts and trust in the reliability and consistency of the Swabian company. When selecting suppliers, Laufer therefore relies on close cooperation and values regional partners who have the same quality awareness. For the supply of precision tools for turning, drilling, milling and broaching, Laufer has a decades-long partnership with Dieterle from Rottweil. "What we particularly appreciate about Dieterle is that we are provided with competent solutions to problems by reliable contacts," comments Anton Abermeth, who is responsible for technical purchasing at Laufer. "This means that even complex projects can be implemented quickly and easily," he continues.

One of Laufer and Dieterle's latest projects involves the production of turned parts with a defined roughness of RA 0.6 - 1.6. These are pin-type sealing plugs for cooling channels in engine blocks, which are used in the automotive industry as well as in the aerospace and mechanical engineering sectors (particularly in agricultural machinery). These sealing elements are used to reliably seal auxiliary holes for the coolant flow using the pull/spread 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 positive fit and thus ensures functionality. The turned parts have a diameter of 3.6 mm and a length of 39 mm and are manufactured from free-cutting steel 60 SPb 22 on a Tornos Deco 10 in a quantity of 1.2 million per year. "The defined surface of these turned parts is absolutely essential and poses a particular challenge," explains Alexander Efinger, CNC single-spindle team leader at Laufer. "In order to ensure a continuous roughness, Dieterle has profiled appropriate form cutting plates for us, which guarantee 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 optimum coating, in which Dieterle supported us, we have now achieved a service life of over 20,000 units," he continues.

Profiled FS type inserts and matching ANF type holders are used here. This flexible tool system was specially designed by Dieterle for the cost-effective production of small, complex turned parts. In addition to customer-specific profiled form grooving inserts, which are very attractively priced thanks to the small-format solid carbide profile blanks, the standard range includes insert geometries for grooving & slotting, grooving for retaining rings in accordance with DIN 471, full radius grooving, axial grooving and, on request, thread chasing of partial and full profiles. "Our ANF system can be used universally and offers enormous potential for considerable time savings with higher process reliability with customer-specific profiled grooving inserts. Of course, the customer's individual circumstances must be taken into account and this is precisely where our decades of experience in the field of form grooving benefit our customers," emphasizes Karl-Heinz Pfenning, Head of Forming Tools at Dieterle. (OM-3/24)