CAM cuts alloy steel machining times by 80%

US oil and gas specialty drilling tools maker reported that Delcam's FeatureCAM reduced machining time for its alloy steel components overall by 80%.

Hawk Industries is a designer and builder of specialty drilling tools for the oil and gas industry based in Signal Hill, California, USA.

The company reported reduced machining time for its alloy steel components overall by 80% following the introduction of Delcam's FeatureCAM feature-based CAM software and an investment in CNC milling machines.

Hawk also said that FeatureCAM reduced part programming times by 30% and helped the company to triple its output.

To maintain and improve its competivity in quality and manufacturing methods, Hawk purchased three more cNC milling machines and FeatureCAM software to take models of its components into production quickly.

Manufacturing consultant at Hawk, Mike Russo, had experience moving from simple 2D software to 3D software in his own business and so recommended FeatureCAM.

Delcam told manufacturingtalk that the impact on Hawk's manufacturing capacity had been substantial.

When Russo got to Hawk, the company was shipping about 20 units each year.

Following the introduction of FeatureCAM, Hawk now makes 60 units+/year.

* Machined part consistency increased - more than 400 CNC programs have been written in FeatureCAM.

Typical machining tolerances are in the 0.001in (0,03mm) range and are achieved consistently.

The result has been a huge improvement in part consistency and a saving of more than 35% in assembly time for the more than 500 different parts that make up Hawk's devices.

On a single plate, the combination of FeatureCAM and the new CNC mills reduced processing time from 4h to 1.5h.

On another part, the machining and assembly time went from 3h down to 35 min, and the fit between the two parts is now more consistent.

FeatureCAM saves programming time as well as machining time.

Its feature-based programming makes it easy to write CNC programs for Hawk's models.

Furthermore, most of the parts machined at Hawk are held in custom fixtures, designed with FeatureCAM.

This not only maintains consistency, but reduces set-up time and allows Hawk to machine several parts in a single set-up, reported Delcam.

* About Hawk Industries - Hawk equipment is used to grab the pipe as it is pulled out of the well and break the threaded joint, or to make the joint as the pipe is put down the well.

One part of the device holds the pipe; another spins the adjoining segment to accomplish the task.

With the Hawk device, it takes only 8s to undo a joint in the field.

The devices can save up to 2h/day and on a rig that costs US$150,000-300,000/day to operate, that amounts to a lot of money.

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