b'Extended-reach toolholders remain a requirement for some jobs.By Holly B. Martin more than long enough to overcome these minimum strokes, dead zones or any other B ecause of interference, such as from a ma- problems with machine limits, Burley said. It chine spindle snout, getting into certaingets down to 10% of the problemswhere ei-features on a vertical machining center some- ther the parts are just so small or so close to times requires toolholders with long gaugethe table or its on a horizontal where you have lengths, said Jack Burley, vice president ofto reach across to the opposite side because sales and engineering at BIG KAISER Preci- of the feature that youre trying to get tosion Tooling Inc., Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Thewhere you need extended-reach toolholders.minimum Z-axis, which is the closest distanceAll the recent investment in multiple-axis a spindle can be to the worktable, has to bemachines, with their increased accessibility to made up by the length of the toolholder. Inworkpieces, has made many people believe the case of a horizontal machining center, thethat the need for extended-reach toolholders shortest distance a spindle can be to the cen- is greatly reduced if not eliminated.ter of the table is also a dead zone that has toWith the 5-axis, I can tilt things around to be made up by the toolholder, he said. get into those places using a standard tool-At least 90% of the time, catalog toolhold- holder, but youre always working off the cen-ers typically in the range of 2" to 6" or 8" areter of the table, Burley said. So everywhere around it, there are going to be certain tilts that make it difficult to reach, like the B-axis all the way at 90 to the spindle, and some fea-tures down by the table itself.Sandvik CoromantSandvik Coromants Coromant Capto is available in various length extensions to optimize applications and with dampened extensions to minimize vibration.52JULY 2019 Toolholders.indd 52 6/13/19 4:43 PM'