b'It comes down to tailoring a tool to a specific part and getting the most out of it that you can.Give and Take The big player is the aerospacethe industry he covers is a major market, he said. consumer of aluminum, with a focus Walther concurred that 6061 is aon high-volume production.work with toolmakers that have of- popular choice. The big difference between au-ferings across the spectrum. It is one of the material gradestomotive and aerospace is the size Because there are such a highthat we keep around our R&D facil- of the parts, he said, such as ma-variety of parts that are made ofity for testing, she said. chining huge wings.aluminum, you have to have a highIn addition to the aerospace in- Those types of large aircraft parts variety of tools to serve the mar- dustry, Kyle Matsumoto, automotivepreviously were made of potentially ket, said Alyssa Walther, auto- specialist for OSG USA, noted thatdozens of components that were motive specialist for Irving, Texas- riveted, bolted or otherwise me-based OSG USA Inc., whos basedchanically attached to each other in Bensenville, Illinois. about the authorbut now are produced as mono-lithic structures, MacArthur said. To Material Matters Alan Richter isproduce them, aircraft manufactur-A plethora of aluminum alloys areeditor-at-largeers sometimes turn 98% or 99% of a available, but the two most com- of CTE. Contactworkpiece into chips while remov-mon are 6061-T6 and 7075, whichhim at alanr@ ing 32 kg (71 lbs.) or more of alumi-MacArthur said is used usually toctemedia.com. num per minute.make aircraft components. As a result, cutting tool manu-Mersen_HiTechAd_HalfPgCTE2_20.qxp_Layout 11/13/208:43 AMPage 1Trust DS4 Ultra-FineEDM Graphite forYour Toughest Jobs The intricate EDM electrodes required to produce our audiospeaker grills take 7+ days of machining and 30+ hours of EDM burning. We needed a graphite we can trust to withstandthis demanding application. We switched to MersensDS4 ultra-fine EDM graphite a few years ago and its beenthe best performing graphite weve used. With the DS4 materialwe have also seen significant savings per electrode. Eric JacobsenHi-Tech Mold & EngineeringDS4 Delivers: Excellent surface finish Exceptionally strongIntricate detail Saves significant money Easy to machineAsk your EDM distributor for DS4!edm.mersen.com Made in U.S.A. Shaping the future of EDM28JULY 2020Aluminum.indd 28 6/15/20 6:07 PM'