October 15-17, 2024 at Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida
FABTECH Shows ▶
Register
An info icon
A close icon

Join Us in Orlando

Attend Exhibit

Expo Hours

Tuesday Oct 15 9 AM — 5 PM
Wednesday Oct 16 9 AM — 5 PM
Thursday Oct 17 9 AM — 4 PM

Venue

Orange County Convention Center

9800 International Drive
Orlando, Florida 32819

About the Expo

North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.

A search icon

North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event

From the Blog

Q & A Blog with Wilson Tool

machine
By Kelly Clark on on
Wilson Tool was nice enough to give us a preview of the products they will be showcasing at FABTECH 2017 in a special Q&A guest blog . Be sure to visit Wilson Tool at FABTECH in Booth A2831 and check out the Q&A below. What type of development has emerged to assist with speedier and correct setup between bending jobs?  Efficiency is the most common way to justify a purchase and clamping a tool in the press brake is a great opportunity for a quick return on investment. When reducing from minutes to seconds several times a day, per shift and with multiple shifts, the dollars add up fast. Wilson Tool offers push button clamping systems for punches and dies in all common tool styles. The Express Rail® series is hydraulically driven and clamps American (.500 inch/12.7mm tang) and WT (.787 inch/20mm) punch tangs. European punches are supported by a pneumatic powered clamping system that is simple to set up and clean to operate. Once the change has been made to a simple and quick clamping system, we suggest asking the operator what they believe is the biggest benefit. They will most likely appreciate the ease of use and satisfaction of eliminating wasted movement in the shop. You can learn more about the Express Rail® series at https://www.wilsontool.com/Products/Bending/Clamping-Systems/Hydraulic-Pneumatic-Clamping. How can rotary bend tooling help an operator deliver reduced material marking? Rotary tooling is probably not as common as it should be. Rotary tooling consists of a punch and die that is made to bend a range of materials to prevent material whip and control marking. If large sheets of material are commonly bent, rotary tooling is a great help. Instead of the material whipping up over an operator’s head, the material remains unmoved and parallel to the floor. This type of bending could also be known as horizontal bending. Although there are other options to horizontal bending, rotary style tooling tends to reduce tonnage by approximately 50 percent and is easy on the material finish. Since the rotating inserts are not fixed and tonnage isn’t under a fixed and concentrated downward pressure, the inserts give way to the pressure and naturally rotate. With the reduced tonnage and natural sliding action the marking on the material is little-to-none depending on the material type. The need to reduce material marking tends to be the number one reason we get asked to make a rotary tool. If the operator is stabilizing parts that are whipping up during bending, safety could easily justify this tool. What type of crowning advancements have occurred to ensure consistent production of long parts? More than ever, press brakes are being designed to account for deflection that naturally occurs. Even with these great improvements, machine manufactures are still seeing the advantages of using a die holder that has the ability to create a crown in the lower beam. If the last good part to the first good part is a way of measuring setup, the longer the bend the more time you will see in the setup when manually creating a crown to account for deflection. Without deflection compensation built into the machine, it would be common for operators to create a crown in the lower beam with cardboard, paper or metal shims – obviously the operator would need to be highly skilled, with years of experience to hope for efficiency using this manual method of shimming. Here we are in 2017 and the manual shimming environment is alive and well and needing help to work towards reducing waste. Wilson Tool offers a die holder that has crowning built into it and is adjusted quickly and accurately. A simple hand crank to crown the body of the die holder or a CNC interface with an electric control can be purchased. Both options allow you to repeat a crown to your specific material type, thickness and length.  To secure the dies, push a button and the dies are clamped. By adding a crowning system you will reduce the time it takes to set up and your last good part to first good part waste will be reduces dramatically. Wilson Tool’s new Express CrowningTM system is the precise and consistent option for controlling deflection on your press brake by manually or electrically crowning the lower beam and securing dies with manual or hydraulic power. More information about the Wilson Tool die holder and Express Crowning™ can be found on the Wilson Tool website at https://www.wilsontool.com/Products/Bending/Clamping-Systems/Manual-Clamping/Die-Holder and https://www.wilsontool.com/Products/Bending/Clamping-Systems/Express-Crowning/Express-Crowning-System. How can the proper tooling help with one of the most challenging of press brake jobs: radius bending? Creating the correct radius with an acceptable finish is one of the oldest and most common challenges to bending. If a .500 inch radius is called out on the print, what radius size do I use on the punch?  Can I use a stock tool or will it need to be made to order to ensure radius size?  Can’t have material marking since the outside surface is going to be visible to customers or needs to be painted but my tooling is leaving marks on the material after bending, how can I eliminate the marking? There are formulas to help determine tooling dimensions to yield the correct finished radius but they are estimations. Spring back on the same material spec from all material vendors can yield a different amount of spring back and ultimately a different radius. To calculate the correct V opening using a standard die to create a 90 degree radius bend try using Material Thickness (MT) + Radius (R) x 2.2 = V-opening. Now select the die opening with the same size as the calculated dimension or the next size larger. For example, if you calculate a 1.4 inch V-opening, you might select a common size like 1.5 inch.  Precision ground tooling, protected material and the correct tool design can all help eliminate unwanted material marking. Wilson Tool takes great pride in the years of experience in developing the correct radius the first time so customers can start making parts as soon as the tool is received. Stop by our booth with questions and our team of experts will work with you to get the answers you need to make quality parts the first time.  How can automatic tool management systems and related tooling help punching operations meet tight deadlines?  Automatic tool management systems and related tooling help by improving efficiencies and productivity. They have the ability to minimize lost time spent searching for tools and allow for better management of tool life and maintenance, so tools can be sharpened or replaced as needed. Wilson Tool’s new iSeriesTM line of new thick turret tooling is designed to be fully compatible with the Amada ID Tooling System (AITS®) tool management system. Laser-marked with a data matrix code on each compatible tool, the new iSeries product line brings sheet metal fabricators even more thick turret tooling choices for their AITS machines. The new iSeries product line delivers shorter lead times, competitive pricing and premium quality tooling. iSeries features and benefits include the following:
  • Fully compatible with Amada AITS® tool management system
  • Each tool includes required laser-marked data matrix code
  • Tooling characteristic documents ship with each tooling order
  • HPX and HP2 tooling include a mechanically fastened guide retention feature, which ensures proper tool assembly during loading with easy pushbutton guide removal.
  • Worldwide availability from Wilson Tool’s U.S. headquarters
  • With the right tools and tool management systems, shops have better visibility of tooling inventory to minimize outages and help staging future jobs.
  • The iSeriesTM product line is only available through Wilson Tool International‘s White Bear Lake, Minnesota, USA office. Visit https://www.wilsontool.com/landing-pages/iseries-tooling to learn more about the iSeries™ product line.
Why do secondary operations drag down efficiencies and part quality? How do solutions like tapping tools make a difference on the punch press? Secondary operations usually add time and costs, and slows production by adding material movements and more que time. Secondary operations are typically much slower and less accurate of a process than in a punch press and require special setups to orient the part for operation. In press tapping tools provide manufactures with fast and reliable operations. QuickTapTM is the fastest and most reliable tapping tool on the market. It not only taps up to 200 holes per minute, but it’s made and serviced by Wilson Tool. That means you get the responsiveness and delivery you expect from the provider you trust. QuickTapTM saves you the time and accuracy that’s lost with a secondary threading application. It creates fast and accurate threads at any programmed location on the sheet right in the punch press. It comes with its own internal fluid injection system that is synchronized with machine stroke, and lasts for up to 40,000 holes before a refill is needed. The QuickTapTM comes with all the components needed to get you tapping holes in no time, and Wilson Tool provides all the replacement parts you need to keep your tapping tool tapping for years to come.  

2024 Platinum Sponsors

2024 Sponsors

Become a Sponsor