The carbide specialist CERATIZIT announces that its wholly-owned subsidiary CERATIZIT USA, Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake of the Californian solid carbide round cutting tool manufacturer Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC.

Jacques Lanners, Co-Chairman of the CERATIZIT Executive Board: “Best Carbide Cutting Tools gives CERATIZIT an exceptional chance to strengthen our network in the USA and build on nationwide top distributors. Best Carbide is known for the quality of its tools, with a strong focus on high-end micro tools.”

Mark Nunez, President of Best Carbide: “Through this partnership, Best Carbide will have access to CERATIZIT technologies and expertise that will help the company to improve its manufacturing process, technical capabilities and quality of tooling – with the goal of ultimately adding greater value for our customers. For the first time in its 37-year history, Best Carbide becomes part of a global cutting tool organization. We believe this will have substantial benefit for Best Carbide’s stability, growth and advancement. The agreement is a win for both companies. Best Carbide Cutting Tools will continue to operate as it does today, but now with full support from the CERATIZIT Group.”

Both private companies have agreed not to disclose any financial details.

About Best Carbide Cutting Tools
Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC is a premium manufacturer of solid carbide round cutting tools located in Rancho Dominguez, California. The company is housed in a 46,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility and currently has about 90 employees.

On January 9, 2017, the CERATIZIT Group has acquired the German company Becker Diamantwerkzeuge. Becker produces extremely wear resistant tools for the automotive, mechanical engineering, medical technology, and aerospace industries.

Becker tools are used when it comes to materials that are exotic and difficult to machine, such as aluminum, carbon fiber reinforced plastics or high alloy steel. In order to minimize the wear while machining, the cutting edges of the carbide tools are reinforced with diamonds or boron nitride.

Becker Diamantwerkzeuge employs 70 people in Puchheim near Munich, Landsberg am Lech, and Idar-Oberstein. The transaction will not change anything for the company’s customers and dealers.

Alexander Becker, the former co-owner, will lead the company as Managing Director. Both companies have agreed not to disclose any financial details.

On 22 and 23 February 2017 CERATIZIT Italia will be participating in the 32nd annual meeting of cold forming specialists in Düsseldorf, a well-established meeting point for the cold forming industry. Our experts will share their technical knowledge and expertise on the topic of ‘Carbide tools for cold forming’.

In relation to the theme of cold forming, the focus will be on trends and results from the fields of tools, materials and component development, coating technology, lubricants, forming machines and process optimisation in development and production, as well as on matters connected with Industry 4.0.

On 23 February 2017 at 1:45 pm Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT will be giving a lecture on the topic of ‘Carbide tools for cold forming’.

Key themes of the CERATIZIT lecture:

• Carbide grade selection for metal forming tools
• Design principles of hard metal tools for stamping, drawing, forging and
other cold forming processes
• Tools analysis and optimisation based on FEM simulation
• Hard metal: powder metallurgy material based on tungsten carbide

Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT is showcasing its large product portfolio at EuroBLECH 2016 from 25 to 29 October this year at stand D103 in hall 27 in Hannover.

With some 1,600 exhibitors from 40 countries presenting their cutting-edge technologies to a worldwide audience, EuroBLECH, the 24th International Sheet Metal Working Technology Exhibition, is renowned as the key marketplace to find the latest equipment and services in all areas of sheet metal working.

Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT – highlights

• More economic efficiency with corrosion-free CF carbide grades for maximum tool life in the tool and die industry as well as with three product lines for economical water-jet cutting.
• More technical expertise with top-class product quality, precision and performance.
• More safety and reliability with company’s extended stock range guaranteeing fast and flexible delivery, for example via our E-TECHSTORE, as well as with the fast production of customised blanks for the cold forming

Weingärtner Maschinenbau, based in Kirchham in Upper Austria, scaled up the concept of its mpmc 1200 machining centre for an American power engineering group. The resulting mpmc 2000S is able to completely machine work pieces weighing up to 60 tonnes. A decisive contribution to this success story was made by the top-class brand Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT. The carbide experts from Reutte, Austria, delivered the overall machining concept, including all the important tools. As well as achieving maximum machining quality, the machining time for the giant turbine shaft – which is used in gas or vapour turbine power plants – has been reduced by two thirds compared to the time previously required for this process.

A flying start

When the first meeting with the American customer was arranged with Weingärtner at EMO in September 2013, the company had already done two years of research to find a convincing concept for complete machining of these turbine shafts featuring an innovative component geometry. One of the big challenges was that the turning diameter of the component is up to two metres. “Until now, the work piece weight between chuck and tailstock was limited to a maximum of 30 tonnes. We had already thought about how we could scale up our mpmc 1200 machining centre to accommodate larger turning diameters and heavier work pieces. In this respect we were a step ahead of our competitors,” says Werner Pommer from the engineering and sales department at Weingärtner Maschinenbau. This innovative approach paid off. Weingärtner received the order to deliver the machine for processing the turbine shaft destined for use in a gas turbine power plant. From the contract being awarded to the delivery of the machine, Weingärtner had only 20 months time. The situation was made all the more challenging by the fact that there was only one high tensile steel blank worth 200,000 dollars available to make the prototype.

Finding a strong partner
A decisive success factor for optimal utilisation of the machine’s potential are the tools applied for this purpose. Therefore, Weingärtner did not take the choice of its supplier lightly. First of all, six potential suppliers were invited to carry out simple milling tests. The results were evaluated using a matrix with the most important criteria for selection. In the second phase of the evaluation process, two of the preselected suppliers produced special tools which were tested in-house on the mpmc 1200, which has an identical machining concept. “Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT convinced us in terms of productivity, process security and dimensional accuracy,” says Pommer. “For the milling tests we used the SILVERSTAR^TM from the new grade universe. We were very confident that we would obtain outstanding results using grade CTPP235 for this material group,” continues Peter Uttenthaler, sales area manager for North and South America from Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT.

By December 2014, Weingärtner had found its partner for developing and delivering the tooling concept: Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT. The most important tools are

• the high feed milling cutters with the new SILVERSTAR^TM CTPP235 grade as a cutting material,
• the extremely precise solid carbide profile milling cutters with multiple cutting edges for the finish milling of the dovetail grooves,
• the MaxiDrill 900 insert drill for particularly deep holes with a diameter of up to 70 mm and
• the HX parting and grooving system for large parting and grooving widths with maximum stability.

Each of these tools contributes to the excellent economic efficiency of the overall process. Alfred Hofegger, head of OEM services at the top-class brand Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT, who was in charge as project leader and technical counsellor right from the start, points out that the milling concept ensures very high productivity and thus short machining times. Furthermore, the solid carbide profile milling cutters convinced thanks to their excellent tool life and perfect dimensional accuracy. The HX parting and grooving system also features very good chip control combined with relatively low cutting forces. “You can say that in this machining centre we apply tools which satisfy maximum demands but altogether cost less than the tools used until now for similar tasks,” says Pommer.

Available at any time
Thanks to its individual logistics concept, the top-class brand Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT ensures 100 % availability of all tools at any time. This was part of the project and an important criterion for the customer with regard to the choice of the tool supplier. A rolling forecast guarantees that the customer’s tool requirements can be calculated in advance. CERATIZIT benefits from the fact that the company has its own logistics centre in Kempten, Germany, and also a U.S. subsidiary, both important elements in the logistics concept developed. “It was also considered a positive fact that we were able to organise the regrinding of the tools through our affiliate Promax Tools, a Californian manufacturer of solid carbide tools, directly in the U.S.,” explains Peter Uttenthaler. According to Weingärtner another advantage and evidence of the extreme commitment of everybody involved was that the American CERATIZIT employee responsible for the project spent two weeks in Kirchham in order to become acquainted with the component, the tools which are used and the machining parameters.

A strong team
“What we have achieved here is the result of a great team performance,” says Uttenthaler. He underlines that both parties could always rely on each other in every single phase of this demanding project. Werner Pommer: “The task was extremely demanding considering the tight time-frame we had been given. We broke it down into individual work packages and planned and worked through each one step by step. Creativity backed up by engineering was vital.” In his opinion, Alfred Hofegger was one of the key players in this project thanks to his excellent technical advice throughout the project. Both sides are proud of the fact that the result ultimately has even exceeded the expectations. The overall machining time including tool changes is only around 130 hours. Originally the goal was to reduce the machining costs by half. In fact, they were reduced by two thirds. Dominik Weingärtner, vice-president of the family-owned company, is also delighted that Weingärtner and CERATIZIT, both of them Austrian companies with an extremely high share of exports, were able to demonstrate that together they are strong partners for demanding customers all around the world. He can well imagine taking on further projects with the partners from Reutte, Austria and admits: “Culturally speaking it makes things easier when two Austrians communicate with each other. We can really be proud of the technology from our region.” It seems very likely that we will be hearing more from the team Weingärtner and Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT.

Technical data

• mpmc 2000S – 7000 (Weingärtner Maschinenbau)
• Swing diameter over bed and carriage: 2 m
• Max. turning length (incl. 1 m front machining): 7 m
• Max. work piece weight: 60 t
• Main spindle: 72 kW / holding torque moment B-axis clamping 20,000 Nm
• Turn-milling head:    72 kW / 3,000 min^-1 / 1,950 Nm
• High speed milling head: 25 kW / 6,000 min^-1 / 200 Nm

Tooling concept and cutting materials from Cutting Solutions by CERATIZIT

• Highly productive high feed milling cutters with SILVERSTAR^TM CTPP235
• Finish milling with BLACKSTAR^TM CTCP230
• Finish milling with solid carbide profile milling cutters with SCPP240 (submicron carbide with a PVD coating and special surface treatment)
• Drilling with MaxiDrill 900, provided with SILVERSTAR^TM CTPP430
• Turning and grooving with COLORSTAR^TM CTCP125

The top-class brand Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT will be showing its extended stock programme for corrosion-resistant carbide grades and the new CF+ grades at Blechexpo 2015. These now offer even higher transverse rupture strength and fracture toughness, thereby increasing process security for tool manufacturing customers.

Between 3 and 6 November, the top-class brand Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT will be presenting its new CF+ carbide grades at the international sheet metal processing trade fair Blechexpo in Stuttgart. These have been developed specially for the tool-making industry, as product manager Ralf Ottilie explains. “For more than a decade, our customers have been working with our proven, technically fully fledged and corrosion-resistant carbide grades. To ensure that this will continue in the future, we have provided our latest developments with a ‘PLUS’ in terms of performance.” The special features include higher KIC values (critical tension intensity factor) at the same hardness, resulting in increased cutting edge stability. This ensures high process security. “Even with delicate active parts, our new grades are reliable for long periods thanks to the increased transverse rupture strength and thereby guarantee stable processes,” adds Ottilie. The susceptibility to and speed of corrosion have also been reduced.

The new grades with the designations CF-H25S+ and CF-H40S+ are available at the same price as the previously available carbide grades.

Extended stock programme for regular CF grades

Hard Material Solutions by CERATIZIT now offers surface-ground carbide blocks for erosion in all corrosion-resistant carbide grades. These are optimally suited to highly abrasive materials, applications with major bending forces or edge stress in stamping, bending, blanking and forming operations. “The factor 80-100 reduction in susceptibility to corrosion of our patented CF grades guarantees considerably better machinability in all subsequent processes,” explains Ralf Ottilie. Customers also benefit from higher efficiency of the active parts.

Productive drilling into solid material now also for drilling depths of 2xD

The extended product range of the high-performance MaxiDrill 900 now also includes tools suited for drilling depths of 2xD to 5xD in the diameter range 14 to 63 mm, thus covering all common specifications.

The CERATIZIT MaxiDrill 900 system is one of the best-performing Systems available in the market when it comes to drilling into solid material. The special design allows for high feed rates, increasing the metal removal rates up to 30 %. Process security in drilling is also guaranteed at higher cutting values and under difficult conditions thanks to the stable construction. Moreover, the asymmetric chip flute design ensures ideal chip evacuation.

The specially optimised grade CTPP430 is ideally suited to a variety of drilling applications and materials, thus making MaxiDrill 900 a specialist for a wide application spectrum.

Furthermore, the drill stands out for its ease of handling. The peripheral and central cutting edge of the insert have the same geometry, size and grade

Productive drilling into solid material now also for drilling depths of 2xD.

The extended product range of the high-performance MaxiDrill 900 now also includes tools suited for drilling depths of 2xD to 5xD in the diameter range 14 to 63 mm, thus covering all common specifications.

The CERATIZIT MaxiDrill 900 system is one of the best-performing Systems available in the market when it comes to drilling into solid material. The special design allows for high feed rates, increasing the metal removal rates up to 30 %. Process security in drilling is also guaranteed at higher cutting values and under difficult conditions thanks to the stable construction. Moreover, the asymmetric chip flute design ensures ideal chip evacuation.

The specially optimised grade CTPP430 is ideally suited to a variety of drilling applications and materials, thus making MaxiDrill 900 a specialist for a wide application spectrum.

Furthermore, the drill stands out for its ease of handling. The peripheral and central cutting edge of the insert have the same geometry, size and grade.

Here you can find further information on MaxiDrill 900.

The CF product line consists of several carbide grades which are specially produced for applications where corrosion resistance is decisive. With grade CF-S12Z, the carbide specialists from CERATIZIT Germany can now offer a new solution for abrasive wear.

“Particularly in the tool and die industry, the requirements concerning wear part grades are extraordinarily high,” explains engineer Florian Knödler, product manager at CERATIZIT who is responsible for the CF grade range. “Homogeneity, porosity and corrosion resistance are the decisive factors when it comes to process security and economy in the tool and die sector,” continues Knödler. CERATIZIT knows the requirements and characteristics of this industry as a result of long-standing customer relations and offers customised solutions with the CF product family.

CF-S12Z: wear resistance, toughness and edge stability
When very abrasive sheet metal is stamped, frequently high wear had to be accepted in the past. “Therefore the development of the new CF-S12Z grade was driven by the thought of increasing the material hardness right from the beginning,” says Knödler. Having succeeded in this, the operators will benefit from longer service life of the carbide tool from now on. But not only the tool life was improved, in fact CF-S12Z also stands for increased toughness which results from a specifically developed binder system that forms part of this innovation. “Although this grade is extremely hard, the necessary edge stability is achieved,” says Knödler summing up.

FROM practical applications FOR practical applications
Developments by carbide expert CERATIZIT are always combined with the claim of being able to accomplish improvements for specific practical applications. Also in the case of CF-S12Z, the development specialists from CERATIZIT collaborated with operators in order to be able to manufacture a product which achieves measurable progress in everyday application. Product manager Knödler states: “As it was last year, when the CF-F35Z grade was developed, CERATIZIT Germany met with experts to optimise the processes for the tool makers. Leading manufacturers from the tool and die industry participated in the development. The result we achieved together is extremely satisfactory.”

The CERATIZIT Group is launching its new “Cutting Solutions” brand just in time for AMB 2014. Under this new brand name, the carbide expert is now offering a comprehensive range of premium-standard products for metal cutting, such as insert tools and solid carbide tools, that are available worldwide. For sales, CERATIZIT is thereby relying on a network of distributor partners. The brand launch will be accompanied by a media campaign including print, on-line and trade fairs.

In addition to drilling, turning, milling, parting and grooving and multi-function tools, the product portfolio of the new CERATIZIT “Cutting Solutions” brand now also includes drills, end mills, reamers, core drills and special tools made from solid carbide. “We are making use of our technological leadership in the major cutting fields to now also offer innovative customer solutions over the whole bandwidth,” explains Thierry Wolter, Board member of CERATIZIT.

In addition to the range of premium-standard products, the hard metal expert will now also be entering into development partnerships in the future, in order to create customized and industry-specific solutions for, for example, the automobile industry, turbine manufacture or heavy machining.

From a niche player to the full product range
The path for the change to a total provider of cutting tools was paved by the joint venture with the tool manufacturer Günther Wirth (GW) in 2012, as well as the majority holding in the Californian manufacturer Promax in the spring of 2014. “We can now offer customers cutting solutions with insert tools and solid carbide tools as an integrated solution from a single source”, explains Thierry Wolter.

But it is not simply a matter of offering a wider range of products, as Andreas Olthoff, Managing Director Cutting Tools at CERATIZIT, added: “I see us setting the standards as a ‘Hidden Champion’. We can convince our customers through better performance and quality, and thereby increase the productivity of our customers.”