Simplify your tool selection system

Anyone looking to manufacture metal-based products will require the right tools for turning, milling, drilling and threading. A tool selection system will come handy for users to ensure that they always have the right tools at all times and for any given application.

“Walter Select is like a guide that employs a simple and standardised approach to help users find the right tool,” explains Benedikt Spiegelhalder, milling product specialist at Walter AG, summarising the concept of the innovative selection system. “It is geared particularly towards the needs of customers, but also supports Walter field service staff in providing sound advice. Walter Select encompasses almost the entire product portfolio offered by Walter for turning, grooving, drilling, threading and milling,” explains Timo Mager, responsible for global threading product management at Walter AG.

The company decided to develop an intelligent and easily comprehensible guide in the form of Walter Select to offer customers an easier and more effective way to select the right tools in all product groups.

“One key concept that stretches across all four product lines is to offer our customers the same kind of framework conditions that they encounter when machining their own products,” explains Timo Mager. “The aim here is to break down complex machining tasks into groups of topics that are easier to manage and understand,” adds Benedikt Spiegelhalder. Obviously, these groups can vary depending on the machining processes involved.

Among other things, however, they include the material that the customer is machining and a classification of the machine’s on-site working conditions.

According to the company, Walter Select is integrated into the Walter catalogue, which contains well over 2,000 pages. Alongside the printed version, this catalogue is also available for download in PDF format via the Internet and in the Walter e-Library i-Pad app.

Step-by-step selection
Regardless of which product group is being examined, the material to be machined is always selected in the first step. The corresponding material group should be noted down here. In the steps that follow, which are specifically matched to the respective machining process, an analysis is performed of the machining operations and the environment in which the customer operates. For example, the machining conditions are classified based on the type of cutting to be performed, as well as the stability of the machine, clamping system and workpiece. To this end, the experts at Walter have developed three smiley faces with different expressions and geometrical forms. These are intended to immediately provide users with the appropriate corresponding recommendation.

For turning operations, customers can use specially developed tables to narrow down their indexable insert selection. In the next step, the insert geometry is then determined via the parameters of cutting depth and feed rate, while the cutting insert geometry is determined via the cutting edge stability and feed rate based on the material. Special so-called chip breaking diagrams are available for this.

In the following fifth step, users are provided with an overview of the catalogue page on which they can find the selected geometry in the appropriate basic shape. On the catalogue page specified, they will find the cutting material recommendations, together with the feed rate and cutting depth, in a clearlAir Max Shox 2018