Page 94 - MetalForming October 2016

More Than Tool & Die
facilities, equipment and capabilities are, its parent company takes no backseat.
Fully Stocked Shop Floor
With 60 employees, including five with Trinity Biomedical, Reich Tool, is fully stocked to perform die build and repair, contract machining and assem- bly. Three mechanical tryout presses, the largest with a capacity of 400 tons, trial progressive and transfer tooling. For larger dies—Reich Tool recently built its largest yet, a 50,000-lb. monster stretching past 200 in.—the company performs tryout on bigger presses at an area stamper.
In the mid-1980s, Reich Tool set out on modernizing its stable of machining equipment, bringing in its first wire- EDM machine and first programming computer. Today, the operation features several wire-EDMs, CNC vertical- machining and turning equipment, bar feeders, a waterjet cutter and gas- metal-arc and gas-tungsten-arc weld- ing capabilities.
Feeding the company’s equipment is just about any type of material, from various steels including stainless to aluminum and titanium alloys, and other exotic alloys often found in aero- space and medical applications.
Over the past decade, Reich Tool’s ability to build large dies has acted as a hedge against overseas competition, owing to the costs and logistics challenges in shipping the large, heavy work across oceans.
92 MetalForming/October 2016
www.metalformingmagazine.com
Showcased on the shop floor is a new five-axis DMC 65 MonoBlock machining center from DMG/Mori. Reich Tool turned the cell into a display area to showcase the unit’s capabilities and the company’s commitment to new machining technology. The machine features a three-station, auto- pallet tool changer and can accommo- date 90 tools.
“This machine is designed to do 3D work in a production setting, in high
volume or as one-offs,” says Brett Reich. High-speed machining at Reich Tool reaches 20,000 rpm, thanks in part to inclusion of through-the-tool coolant
circulation to keep temperatures low. The company also has added Swiss- type turning capability, allowing for detailed turning, threading, drilling, tapping and countersinking on com- ponents with diameters of less than 1 in. —a nod to Reich Tool’s precision-
machining expertise.
Medical Contract Supported Through All Company Divisions
Reich Tool & Design, encompassing stamping-tool design build and repair operations, a contract-machining division and Trinity Biomedical’s cleanroom assembly opera- tion, has occasionally seen work cross all three of these
units to achieve a final product. A module used to create fields for CT scanners is one such example.
For each module, the tooling area flattens and cuts 232 fins made from 0.007-in.-thick type 302/304 full-hard stain- less steel, which are further processed via wire-EDM work in the machining division. Machineable ceramic forms a base to hold the fins via precisely cut and spaced slots in the ceramic—spacing is critical to ensure creation of the correct electrical field. The fins are glued into the slots, with microwelding employed to attach wire leads. Swiss turning is another machining step, used to create inserts that also are placed into the module. Many of the assembly opera- tions, including washing of the fins and entire module, take place in Trinity Biomedical’s cleanroom. Wire leads then connect the modules to form a complete donut ring as the final assembly step, an operation also performed in the cleanroom.
Without all of these capabilities inhouse, Reich Tool may have never received this contract, according Fritz Reich, president.