Honoring The Fallen from Tungsten Carbide Dies Blog

Today is Memorial Day here in the US and the Tungsten Carbide Die blog would like to honor those that gave everything for our freedoms. Let's make sure we live our lives in a way that makes their ultimate sacrifice worth it. We need to be thankful for these freedoms we never really consider, I can post any opinion I have on this site without fear of repercussion, I can pursue I business manufacturing carbide dies without worry of it being taken from me and countless other freedoms I enjoy that are taken for granted. These freedoms were paid for across the globe through the deaths of thousands of our men and women, from musket balls at Saratoga to  modern weapons at the current battle in Mosul. I would also like to extend this thank you to our allies that have stood by our side in the battles against tyranny and repression. Thank you to all the fallen!

Machining and Tool and Die 2017

Happy New Years fellow machinists, machine lovers, tool and die workers, carbide die makers and people that don't really love machining but work in the industry! Also, happy new years to that guy that makes candle sticks in his garage with a 1943 lathe! OK, let's calm down. To celebrate I'm doing yet another installment of machining gifs and videos. This eye candy will get everyone going ;)  Just click the video to play.

How metal chips are born

Beautiful Finnish!

Wire Forming

Finally, the worlds biggest 3D printed part.

Have a great 2017!

Skilled Machinists

Obviously, not just reading a micrometer, but you have to have the skills to pay the bills if you want to earn that kind of money. Anything you can learn in a day doesn't count. Sorry, burger flippers. We need skilled workers, otherwise the "emerging economies" of the world  deserve our jobs. If our workers can't make anything more complex then a burger and expect to be paid twenty times what a skilled foreign work is paid, then we deserve what we get. Let's not kid ourselves though, just giving everyone a raise will only hurt the US economy.

Die Making Prints

There are two kinds of prints in tool and die. You will recognize both of these! I work in carbide die manufacturing and prefer type 2. Let me know what kind you get.

Tooling Print: Type 1. Good Luck.

 

Type 2. - Got it!

Machine Shop Tools 101

Good Advice for all Machine Shops.

Any real machine shop will have tools like this. Its a Hammer-pliers-screwdriver. More handy than your typical Wrench-Knife.





And here is the worlds biggest machine. It does some mining work in Germany and may or may not be involved in a plot to saw off part of Czechoslovakia.

Only true machinists can enjoy this sweet music.

Beauty of Carbide Dies and Tool and Die

Machining can be a beautiful thing at times, it is an act of creation after all. The birth of an object from it's raw materials. Sometimes it takes slowing the action down to capture the amazing life in side of carbide die making and tool and die in general. Here's some videos of cutting, shaping and forming for you tool heads!

U.S. Manufacturing Growth Accelerates

For the first time in six months, U.S. manufacturing has grown substantially from more new orders

US Manufacturing - Cautiously Optimistic

being placed and more employees being put to work.

The increase in factory activity indicates the economy may be beginning to grow again after dwindling for the first three months of the year. Yet, overall growth remains slow, due to a multitude of factors. Americans have been unwilling to spend, even though there is more work and even low gas prices allowing more flexibility to spend.

The value of the dollar increasing acutely has made U.S. goods more expensive overseas, decreasing exports. Economists predict the economy may grow at a 2 percent annual pace in the April-June quarter, after a 0.7 percent decline in the first three months of the year.

With the end of a labor dispute at West Coast ports, manufacturers have benefited from parts and raw materials flowing more freely.

Signs also point to the stabilizing of overseas economies. China's manufacturing sector expanded last month, although not very rapidly, reported by an official manufacturing index. Manufacturing in the European Union has also picked up.

U.S. export orders did not see any rise or fall last month, after increasing in April. This is still preferred to the three months of the first quarter when export orders were receding.

Fourteen industries reported growth last month, including clothing, furniture, paper products and food and beverages. Two industries reported contraction: textile mills and computers and electronics.

The dramatic drop in the price of oil, from $110 a barrel last June to less than $50 in January, has caused drilling companies to cut back heavily on digging and building new wells. These cut backs have drastically reduced the demand for steel pipe and other equipment.

Business spending on buildings and equipment dropped 2.8 percent in the first quarter, the largest drop in more than five years. Despite all of this, there are signs that businesses, specifically those outside oil and gas, are spending more on expensive items such as machinery.