Ceratizit adds technical sales engineers

Ceratizit USA has added John "Buddy" Cagle to its South Carolina-based sales team.Cagle brings more than 20 years of manufacturing engineering and sales experience to his position as a technical sales engineer. His background includes horizontal and vertical CNC milling and controller programming, EDM machining, CNC grinding and CO2 laser equipment. Cagle has a broad cutting tool industry background, especially with Tier 2 suppliers in the automotive industry. His training and hands-on knowledge spans multiple aspects of programming and machining, from indexable inserts and drilling to threading solutions and carbide milling. “From a technical perspective, process and application engineering are my strong suits,” said Cagle. "Working closely with manufacturing engineers means I have the opportunity to solve new challenges every day."

Cagle’s solution-driven focus matches the practical and production-line challenges customers face across industries. His professional successes are a direct result of his dedication to personal relationships as well as production applications.

CERATIZIT also welcomes Trent Larsen to its North Central U.S. team as a Technical Sales Engineer. He is based out of Wisconsin and brings 27 years of industry experience in machining and programming to the cutting tool company.

Larsen’s deep professional background includes working with large and small vertical milling machines, CNC and manual horizontal milling machines and turning centers. His programming experience spans conversational language as well as G-code programming.

"By nature, I am a problem-solver and have honed the skill throughout my career,” Larsen said. "When I put my decades of experience to work for machinists, there is a professional payoff, and the ultimate reward comes when I am able help someone from a part’s conception to completion."

Larsen has always been proactive about his technical education and sought out learning opportunities as a youth, including an independent-study class focused on metals. His machine-tool education continued at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College with a focus on machine operations.

With hands-on experience and an in-depth commitment to service, Larsen is dedicated to CERATIZIT’s customer relationships and technical excellence.

Programs written to operate NC machines with control systems that comply with the ANSI/EIA RS-274-D-1980 Standard. A program consists of a series of data blocks, each of which is treated as a unit by the controller and contains enough information for a complete command to be carried out by the machine.

Cone-shaped pins that support a workpiece by one or two ends during machining. The centers fit into holes drilled in the workpiece ends. Centers that turn with the workpiece are called “live” centers; those that do not are called “dead” centers.

Microprocessor-based controller dedicated to a machine tool that permits the creation or modification of parts. Programmed numerical control activates the machine’s servos and spindle drives and controls the various machining operations. See DNC, direct numerical control; NC, numerical control.

Process that vaporizes conductive materials by controlled application of pulsed electrical current that flows between a workpiece and electrode (tool) in a dielectric fluid. Permits machining shapes to tight accuracies without the internal stresses conventional machining often generates. Useful in diemaking.

Machining with several cutters mounted on a single arbor, generally for simultaneous cutting.

Machining operation in which material is removed from the workpiece by a powered abrasive wheel, stone, belt, paste, sheet, compound, slurry, etc. Takes various forms: surface grinding (creates flat and/or squared surfaces); cylindrical grinding (for external cylindrical and tapered shapes, fillets, undercuts, etc.); centerless grinding; chamfering; thread and form grinding; tool and cutter grinding; offhand grinding; lapping and polishing (grinding with extremely fine grits to create ultrasmooth surfaces); honing; and disc grinding.

Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.

Process of both external (e.g., thread milling) and internal (e.g., tapping, thread milling) cutting, turning and rolling of threads into particular material. Standardized specifications are available to determine the desired results of the threading process. Numerous thread-series designations are written for specific applications. Threading often is performed on a lathe. Specifications such as thread height are critical in determining the strength of the threads. The material used is taken into consideration in determining the expected results of any particular application for that threaded piece. In external threading, a calculated depth is required as well as a particular angle to the cut. To perform internal threading, the exact diameter to bore the hole is critical before threading. The threads are distinguished from one another by the amount of tolerance and/or allowance that is specified. See turning.

Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.