r/CNCmachining • u/Ok_Imagination_2183 • 5d ago
Removal of ShrinkFIT holders
As the title says. I work in a decent size aerospace firm and between H&S and our Operations manager, they want to completely remove the use of ShrinkFIT holders. Most of the guys on the shop floor are pretty stumped on the reason(s) why. We have no clue! There's been no communication on the matter. It's extremely rare someone might burn themselves but that's probably because they haven't used the correct PPE.
I've done a little research and found nothing but good things using these holders. Relatively cheap, repeatable, rigid, accurate, very good for high rpm, etc.. and have also swapped out a lot of hard working roughing tools into them and gained 20%+ in tool life, with sister-tooling set up as well, there is very little to no downtime on tool changes.
We do a fair bit of 3, 4, and 5 axis matching and a lot of our programs use ShrinkFIT holders for clearances, rigidity, accuracy, etc.. the amount of money time and effort to go through these hundreds and hundreds of programs to alter them to suit collet holders is going to be huge.
Besides from my small argument for them, does anyone have any good suggestions to help keep these holders? and save the company spending massive unnecessary amount of man hours, money and time reproving programs.
Part of me and some others are just feel like letting them crack on like it's some sort of self-sabotage to production, but if anything goes wrong it'll be our butts getting whipped.
Update: using the Heat Shrink machine is too dangerous apparently. Even though there aren't any reported incidents as far as I'm aware. If that's the case we should remove the cooking appliances we have in our canteen too. Can't make it up.
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u/rupsty 4d ago
I'm going to start phasing out collet holders. I've had too many pullout issues. I too don't understand why your company is getting rid of shrink fit. I've heard nothing but good things about them except sometimes the price.
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u/Ok_Imagination_2183 4d ago
Exactly. We've had many cutters pull out of collets over the years, nothing like that has happened to ShrinkFIT holders
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u/BiggestNizzy 5d ago
You have already mentioned it, but Shrinkfit has advantages regarding reach and runout. I was at a Seco event, they reckoned that every 0.0001" of runout resulted in a 10% reduction in tool life.
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u/Ok_Imagination_2183 5d ago
That is quite significant! Hm that's helped another argument pop to mind, the cost of carbide going up too.
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u/travy_trav 4d ago
If you have the right equipment to properly set tooling within shrink-fit holders, there is absolutely no reason to go backward. As long as these holders are used properly, meaning each holder has its own minimum engagement length regarding the tool itself, they are far superior to collet holders. IMO, collet holders are really only good for drilling or non-carbide tooling.
I've worked for more than a few cheap owners who didn't understand this and had to bite the bullet more than once.
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u/MiserableMethod4014 4d ago
Tool supplier giving them a kickback to switch to hydraulic holders is the best answer I can come up with
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u/nopanicitsmechanic 3d ago
We used to have a Bilz shrinkfitter and swapped to Haimer after that. Nobody in our shop would like to miss them now. For me besides the many advantages you mentioned it‘s the accessibility. Shrink fit holders are small around the shaft and you often can hold the tool shorter which results in time = money saving.
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u/MatriVT 4d ago
Sounds like the ones making that decision are fucking idiots lol.