Finishing - May-June 2023

26 TOOLS
New opportunities
Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing,
allows Seco Tools to create products
that would otherwise be difficult or
impossible to manufacture. The advantages
include shorter lead times, improved tool life
and increased sustainability.
The development and manufacture of
prototypes for metal-cutting machining by
means of additive manufacturing (AM) is
becoming increasingly commonplace in the
operations of Seco Tools. One of the main
strengths of this manufacturing method is the
possibility of making specialized customerspecific
tools and solutions that are difficult to
achieve through conventional manufacturing.
Above all, AM technology will come into its
own when producing tools that must be
designed in a special way. This may involve
complex geometries or other customizations
to customer-specific needs.
Examples of such customizations include
making the tools lighter, which improves the
vibration-dampening properties, or provide
them with better cooling possibilities. “By
directing the coolant to hit the cutting edge at
just the right place, we can significantly
extend the tool’s useful life. With AM
technology, coolant can be guided to
locations that would otherwise have been
impossible,” explains Ingemar Bite, R&D
Specialist at Seco Tools, who also believes that
AM technology is helping to shorten lead
times. “AM allows for us to produce
geometries that require less manufacturing
steps, which often results in shorter lead times
and thereby, faster deliveries.”
Increased sustainability
AM technology will also open up the
possibility of repairing broken tools in the
future, by removing dysfunctional components
and printing them anew. This could, for
example, involve tool components or the
reuse of different types of machine-side
connections. This is particularly a good idea in
terms of the environment and sustainability.
Another advantage with AM technology,
compared with traditional manufacturing in
this context, is that there is less waste of
materials. Overall, not as much material is
used for AM manufacturing and any leftover
powder can be reused.
Additive manufacturing could thus be a
time-efficient and cost-efficient method for
one-of-a-kind production and prototype
development. However, it could also work
excellent for large-scale manufacture of
standard products. Seco Tools is already
manufacturing cooling clamps for its Jetstream
tools through 3D printing. “The cooling
clamps have a complex form with curved
cooling channels and are thus well-suited to
this type of manufacture,” says Ingemar Bite.
Continuous improvements
The R&D department at Seco Tools works
continuously to improve the use of AM
technology for the development and
manufacture of new and existing products.
The company is constantly looking into ways
to improve its products and how to best
utilize AM technology. “We like to collaborate
with our customers on these efforts and to
conduct tests together with them,” says
Ingemar Bite, who is of the opinion that even
the materials can be developed. “The
materials that are currently used in AM are no
different in nature than those being used in
conventional manufacturing, and the
technology works well with many different
metals. In the future, we will add even more
and superior materials, while regularly
adapting our equipment and upgrading
hardware and software as needed,” he
concludes.
Different methods can be used for additive
manufacturing; the one that Seco Tools uses is
called SLM (Selective Laser Melting). Here,
lasers and a bed of metal powder are used to
construct the products. In an SLM machine, a
roughly 20–60 μm layer of powder is spread,
and then processed by a laser. This process is
repeated, layer by layer. Once all the layers
are in place, the excess powder is removed
and the product goes into post-processing for
its final form.
Finishing - May/June 2023