In the ever changing world of machine tooling, we have seen
many things shift. Everyone is looking for an edge. We have also seen in the
re-sharpening industry quite a bit of change. Due to many advances in
technology, the regrind industry has gone from any John with a bench grinder
being able to “re-sharpen” tools, to the ability to match original geometries
of the tools. With this said, we have
seen another interesting trend….
This trend is to use the manufacturer as the source for
re-sharpening the tools. I know, it kind of makes sense, the manufacturers
obviously know how to sharpen their own tools, the question is what benefit is
it to them? The manufacturer isn’t purely
interested in prolonging the life of each individual tool; that would be a
conflict of interest. They want to get you a new tool. It is, however, in the
best interests of the end user to extend the life of all of their tools. It
just so happens to be in our best interests too.
As a regrind shop, our business model is set up to regrind each individual tool as
many times as we can before being scrapped out. We want to see that tool as
many times as humanly possible to maximize that tools’ life and, in doing so,
it saves our customers money along the way.
We at CountyLine-Tool have a very unique set up and
advantage of being a Komet service provider. What it means to be a Komet
service partner is that Komet has approved of our quality standards and has
agreed that they will work with us with their customers so while we can help
you get new tooling it is still in our best interests to make the tools you
currently have last as long as possible.
I’ll use the example of a standard 4 fluted ½” endmill. At
CountyLine-Tool, we say that we can sharpen this until it is down to .435”. That
means, under normal wear conditions, we will be able to sharpen that endmill 4
to 5 times before we have to scrap it. A manufacturer does not have the same
incentive to prolong the tool use before saying it should be replaced.
If the above situation is followed you can expect to pay
about $150 for a new endmill, and under $20 to resharpen it. To put it in
perspective: buying 1 tool and sharpening it 4 times vs. buying a tool,
sharpening it once and buying a new tool you can expect to spend $260 more
($490 to buy new and re-sharpen 1x then new again vs. $230 to buy 1 new and
sharpen it 4 times). That is just for 1 tool! Imagine how much you could save
overall if you were using a quality sharpening house and maximizing the life of
your tools.
