Charles Day, vice president and general manager of Contour 360, says: “While this recognition speaks of our craftsmanship, it also makes a tremendous statement about the skills of the machine maker and the support provided.”
To find the Tool of the Year, Anca held a competition for customers to submit their best tool, with the winners judged and announced live at IMTS. The prize is a trip for two to Anca’s headquarters in Melbourne, Australia to see first-hand how the technology is created. All other finalists received an Anca software package of their choice.
Pat Boland, co-founder at Anca, says: “All the entrants were of a very high standard and demonstrated a deep understanding for tool geometry, as well as making full use of Anca’s software. It was very close and difficult to decide, and I congratulate all the finalists, including Contour360, Daily Grind Industrial Tool, Acu Twist, Miltera, SAN Engineering and Kazimieruk. After measuring the surface finish and geometry on Alicona and Zoller machines respectively, the votes were tallied and Contour360 won for their complex tool, which was brilliantly executed. Grinding a complex tool like that requires sharp wheels, accurate qualification of wheels and a perfect set up.”
Alfred Lyon, cutting tool supervisor at AB Tools, and one of five competition judges, adds: "A great cutter grinder has the eye of an artist and the heart of a craftsman. Anca CNC grinders have allowed us to push the envelope of perfection, and we are truly only limited by our imagination. The entrants in Anca’s Tool of the Year contest are wonderful evidence of what we can come up with.”
Another judge, Stefan Scherer, president of Alicona, says: “For more and more tool manufacturers, surface finish and roughness measurement on tools are becoming increasingly important. We clearly see a trend towards the manufacturing of highly polished surfaces as they significantly increase machining results. By including surface finish values as a criterion in their tool competition, Anca shows that their machines meet the needs of customers, who as a result can produce state-of-start tools with outstanding lifetime and machining quality.”