KV Tooling won first place in ANCA’s industry-first competition, ANCA Tool of the Year. The cutting tool industry has refined the craft over the years to design beautiful tools with superior cutting performance.
The industry has cultivated applying science to achieve a sub-micron surface finish as well.
Pat Boland, ANCA co-founder said, “All finalists were of a very high standard and demonstrated a deep understanding for tool geometry as well as taking full use of ANCA’s software to design unique and special cutting tools. We congratulate the winner, KV Tooling, runner-up Eshed Tools, and Zakłady Mechaniczne Kazimieruk, to whom we gave a special creativity award for daring Bat Man design.”
Brian Beland, President at KV Tooling Systems said, “Competing with world-class tool grinding shops from around the world with same grinding machines and winning — regardless of the size of the shop —is something we are particularly proud of.”
“Our entry was a very complex tool with many features incorporated into one tool. We designed the cutting tool to satisfy a customer’s problem, where our one tool replaced a machining requirement that previously required six tools. The customer was very happy with the production gains, and for us to submit to ANCA Tool of The Year. We believe winning the competition makes our company more marketable and will give us great exposure and hopefully expand our customer base,” Beland said.
Eshed Tools entered the competition to share its special tool manufacturing skill set with ANCA users. Shmulik Arbel, production manager, said they are proud of their expertise which means they can “produce special geometries that are difficult to achieve and save our clients expensive production time.”
Arbel said, “Taking out this prize creates a great opportunity for global exposure through the Tool of the Year competition. For us, ESHED tools as a small and growing tool manufacturer, world-wide recognition is important and will help us expand beyond the local market.”
On winning the ‘Most Creative Tool,’ Zakłady Mechaniczne Kazimieruk said, “We thought outside the box and were motivated to inspire the grinding community with our entry. During everyday work, our team make a lot of customized tools so we wanted to make something fresh and unique – even to us. Furthermore, entering was a great test for our grinding skills. We relished the opportunity of seeing others’ craftmanship and the entries in the tool of the year competition demonstrated to us the range and type of cutting tools that are possible.”
The competition was based on passion and the craft of tool making to celebrate the highly skilled tool grinding community.
Winners
- First Place: KV Tooling, kvtooling.com
- Runner-Up: Eshed Tools, eshedtools.com
- Most Creative Tool: Zakłady Mechaniczne Kazimieruk, kazimieruk.com.pl
Judging Panel
- Pat Boland, co-founder and managing director at ANCA.
- Ralph Van Hoorn, owner at Van Hoorn Carbide.
- Thomson Mathew, product manager at ANCA.
- Alicona – measurement of surface finish.
- Zoller – measure profile and diameter.
The top five tools were judged on the following criteria:
- Best surface finish in Ra (roughness average) value on the flute or gash surface.
- The tool that is closest to the nominal tolerance as stated on the drawing in terms of diameter and profile (i.e. if the tolerance on diameter is +/- 0.010mm and the tool is measured to 0.005 then this will rank favorably.)
- Tool that has been ground to the tightest tolerance as per the drawing (i.e. the tool with the lowest tolerance will rank favorably.)
- Level of complexity (i.e. in terms of the number of steps, profiles will rank favorably.)
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