Saw blade regrinding specialist Sawtec has installed a Walter Woodtronic Rapide grinder to help meet rising demand for tungsten tip blade regrinding.
Brian Bourne, managing director of Eastleigh-based Sawtec, said he opted for the CNC 5D machine because of its promise of 30% faster production routines and a three-pallet loader which enables up to 120 blades of varying diameter to be processed in any order.
The Rapide’s capability for fast tooth production routines depends partly on Walter Window Mode control software, which allows operators to create programs for any tooth shape and combinations of shapes within a specified diameter.
Walter GB Ltd says the saw blade indexing unit’s optional cross-slide functionality enables tooth pitch variations to be swiftly calculated, reducing set-up times when machining batches of blades of varying diameter.
The machine can take circular blades of 80mm to 850mm diameter, up to 12mm thick and with tooth pitches of 4mm-125mm. Its spindle drive is 1.1kW, producing spindle speeds of 3,000 revs/min and cutting rates of 26m/sec.
