BIG KAISER Tooling Today

It was, in part, Peterson Machining’s investment in high-end machinery that inspired the addition of the FUTURA. Its biggest yet is planned this summer: a 46,000-lb DMC 85 FD RS6. The DMG Mori mill-turn machine will use HSK 63 tooling. As with the other five-axis machinery at Peterson Machining, the intent is for the SPERONI presetter to play a big role in making the most of the new addition. “The presetter is really going to come into play because we do a lot of lights-out production,” Peterson said. “The presetter will allow us to set up sister tools and designate setups in such a way that we can be confident.” The precision and capability of the FUTURA has already proven critical, and with one eye always on the future, Peterson trusts that the pearlitic class 40 cast iron build of the presetter will pay off too. “We like the construction of the machine because longevity is important to us,” Carper said. “Since we buy high-end machine tools that we plan to last 20 years, we needed something really solid that would last as long as the machines.”

“Before, it would just be me or the setup person with an indicator and I’d take up 20 or 30 minutes of machine time dialing in my tools. Now I can get that all done offline,” Carper said. “I just load the offsets in, press ‘go’ and it just runs.” Added Ronda Peterson, “We have always dialed in the tools between one and two-tenths runout. You can only imagine how much time that took, and the fact that we’re doing that outside of the spindle is definitely a big advantage for the shop.” Steve Carper, lead machinist at Peterson Machining, said that before the installation of the presetter he noticed discrepancies of a couple of tenths from one day to the next with some in-machine lasers. That concern has been eliminated with the addition of the SPERONI FUTURA.

CONTRIBUTOR Ronda & Todd Peterson are the Owners of Peterson Machining Steve Carper is the Lead Machinist at Peterson Machining

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