LONG LIVE TOOLING

ISCAR, an innovative tooling solutions provider, shares insight on live tooling and its applications

- Kruti Bharadva

‘Live’ tool (also known as a driven tool) is the term used for tools that clamp on a lathe turret or a tool post with rotation capabilities. In a traditional lathe, a workpiece rotates, but the tool does not. Multitasking CNC machines with turning, milling, and drilling capabilities have significantly changed process planning principles. It was a major leap forward to the one-setup machining of a whole part – the dream of every manufacturer.

Commonly, Swiss-type machines have one or two sub-spindles. Therefore, it was no coincidence that the Swiss-type machine adopted the live tool concept very quickly, which has considerably increased machine functionality.

Such noticeable changes in machine tools were bound to influence appropriate tooling, so the development of live tools turned into a specialised sector for tool producers. When referring to live to tool, it is often assumed that the emphasis should be on the tool holder that carries standard round tools with relatively small dimensions. Indeed, a rich variety of turrets, sub-spindles, and milling spindles in multitasking machines and live tool lathes results in a wide range of tool holding systems with different adaptations. These systems are intended for clamping diversified standard cutting tools.

In many cases, limited working space and various designs of tool posts, turrets, and sub-spindle units, which reflect every imaginable concept of a machine tool builder, require customised tool solutions. This is usually correct when it comes to small dimensions, mainly related to Swiss-type lathes and small to medium multitasking machines, but are less common in powerful heavy multitasking machines, which are intended for large, complex parts and consume a lot of large-size standard tools.