ÜFABRICATING | Plasma Cutting The Problem High cost of Ontario manufacturer sees out-sourced beveling big benefits with new high-tech plasma machine Beveling Success The Solution HERE WAS NOTHING wrong horse collar has so many large arcs and with the old machine. In fact, it complex bevels there was no way we A plasma machine with T wasn’t even that old—Guelph, could do it in-house.” beveling capabilities ON-based AWC Manufacturing The subcontracting for that one part Inc.’s first plasma burner, a Koike alone was costing AWC over $150K Mastergraph II, had been purchased annually. Adding insult to injury, their just six years earlier. The problem homemade beveling machine was on its was with the ‘horse collars’ AWC last legs. “The drives and the controller was making for Komatsu Mining. were breaking down a lot and we were Since the Mastergraph only burns getting nervous. The beveling for the vertical I-cuts, the Ontario fabricator horse collars was under control (at a was spending $275 apiece to have cost), but there were also many other a local machine shop bevel the big parts for Komatsu, as well as outriggers BY KIP HANSON U-shaped parts. Operations manager and upper frames for Link-Belt and Don Savage explains: “at that time, axles for Hitachi. All of these require we had a 20-year old machine that beveling, as do most of our commodity we’d retrofitted with a plasma head parts.” Savage says the machine shop and an NC controller. So for most of route was too expensive, so AWC tried our work we’d burn everything on sending some of its more complex work the Mastergraph and then use the old out for plasma beveling at some of the THE EQUIPMENT retrofit machine for beveling. But the local plate houses. “They couldn’t hold THE MASTERGRAPH EXTREME is a bevel plasma or oxy-fuel cutting machine able to cut mild steel, stainless steel, aluminum, copper and brass. The optional 3D rotary head is capable of 360° rotation and can cut X, Y, V, and K bevels to 50° in either direction. “The 3D-LT head interpolates complex arcs and shapes in one continuous motion,” explains Wayne Gergens, cutting specialist at Linde Canada, a distributor for the Koike Aronson plasma cutting machine. “This means both straight and angled cuts can be accomplished in a single operation, directly from a customer’s CAD drawing.” Standard features on the machine include a heavy duty H-beam and rail design, allowing for rail length expansion, a main rail saddle head shield to protect the main beam and rails when cutting heavy metal, and large diameter pinions for more accurate and smoother machine motion, claims Koike Aronson. An endless loop stainless steel band keeps the motion of the traverse axis accurate and smooth when using multiple torches. www.shopmetaltech.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 Reprinted with permission from Shop Metalworking Technology Beveling Success the tolerances we required. That’s when The Koike Aronson Mastergraph Extreme plasma/ Complex bevels are possible with a 3D rotary plasma we called Linde.” oxyfuel machine in action. head on the Mastergraph Extreme plasma machine. Linde Canada Ltd., Mississauga, ON, distributes welding, cutting and the same equipment brand, AWC was thickness bevel type. Also, proper torch safety supplies throughout Canada, able to get both machines running on calibration is critical to getting the and is a reseller of Koike Aronson the same set of rails. “This was a huge correct dimensions on your part. It’s cutting machines. AWC challenged the advantage to us. As we went through far more important than on standard company with the horse collar. “This the learning curve, it was nice to plasma. On the other hand, you’re is 1-1/4 in. [31.75 mm] plate steel with a have the old machine there for those asking the machine to do much more, number of bevels, ranging from ½ in. situations where we got stuck figuring so it’s all relative.” (12.7 mm) x 45° on the inside diameter things out. It worked out very well for Those test cuts are used to populate to 30° and 17° bevels on the outside,” us.” a database in the ProNest CAD/ says Savage. “The tolerance on the root CAM system by Hypertherm, thus face has to be held to +/- 1.5 mm.” establishing a library of settings the Wayne Gergens, cutting specialist at Machine design software uses during programming. Linde, pointed AWC to a Mastergraph simplicity means fewer Savage says this is far different than Extreme from Koike Aronson, Arcade, with regular I-cutting, since the NY. The Extreme navigated the thing to go wrong, an machine now has to be told how far horse collar’s complex requirements important factor for to move the head in the Z axis, as with ease—AWC was convinced, and plasma cutting. well as angular information, during ordered its new machine in August of bevel cuts. “Basically, you have an last year. AutoCAD drawing of the profile That’s not to say AWC didn’t shop That learning curve is probably the that gets imported into ProNest. You around. But since the company already only “gotcha” that AWC experienced generate the toolpaths, and if there are had a relationship with Linde from the through the entire machine any bevels, you tell the software what purchase of its first Koike, the decision implementation. Looking back over type you want and on which line of the was much easier. According to Savage, the past year, Savage says they probably profile. After that, you post the code, the machine’s “simplicity of design” underestimated the time it would take send it out to the machine and press means fewer things to go wrong, an to get up to speed. “A machine with a cycle start.” important factor in the demanding bevel head is more difficult to program Savage says it took AWC several environment of plasma cutting. “Unlike and setup than straight plasma cutting. months to work through all of the some of the other machines we looked One of the things you don’t realize up different bevels it typically uses. In the at, the Koike doesn’t use a PLC to drive front is that you’ve got to spend the event of a new requirement, however, the head. It’s just software, CNC, and necessary time cutting test pieces to get setup is no more difficult than the head itself.” Also, by sticking with the right offset and parameters for each throwing a drop of the correct material Reprinted with permission from Shop Metalworking Technology NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 www.shopmetaltech.com ÜFABRICATING | Plasma Cutting on the table and making a few test burns. “It probably takes an hour to establish parameters for a new bevel. Aside from that, there’s a head calibration routine we have to run every couple of months. When we first got the machine, that routine took us an entire day to go through, but now we can do it in a few hours.” That might sound like a hassle, but Savage admits they were making parts three weeks after taking delivery of the machine. “The installation took a little over a week, followed by two or three days of training. The first part we cut was our horse collar, which we did on Friday afternoon right after the service tech from Linde went home. We were all very pleased with the results.” One year later, things are running smoothly. Aside from the “one stop shop” processing of its complex parts, AWC sees significant speed improvements as well. The Mastergraph Extreme boasts a 400-amp power supply, a 50 per cent increase over the old Mastergraph II. In one-inch plate, this means 70 in. per minute (ipm), compared to 40-50 ipm previously. The other consideration for would-be plasma machine purchasers is table choice. Savage explains that AWC went with a water table over a downdraft because it wanted to eliminate its smoke stacks. “It was a tough choice. Aside from the air quality The Mastergraph Extreme's ability to hold tight tolerances for considerations, we felt the water table would give us better table cutting and beveling of complex parts convinced AWC to purchase life.” But what AWC discovered was that, when you’re cutting the machine from Koike Aronson distributor Linde Canada. at an angle, more of the support slats underneath the workpiece are exposed to the plasma than with vertical I-cutting. “Table maintenance is actually quite a bit higher when you’re cutting a lot of bevels.” Maintenance costs aside, the bottom line is this: AWC is well on its way to a two-year payback on its new machine, running just the horse collar. “Volumes have gone down a bit, but we’re still well on target. What once cost us $275 each to send out can now be done in-house in just over 20 minutes. Yes, we had to learn some things along the way, but overall the machine has done very well. We’re very happy with our decision,” says Savage. SMT Kip Hanson is a contributing editor. [email protected] For more information on fabricating www.alloy-welding.com technologies, visit Shop Metalworking Technology’s FABRICATING ZONE online www.koike.com at www.shopmetaltech.com. www.lindecanada.com www.shopmetaltech.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 Reprinted with permission from Shop Metalworking Technology.