Silverline – innovation extends its advantage

Making changes to what is your most popular product can pose significant risk, but in the case of CERATIZIT Group’s SilverLine solid carbide milling cutters, taking those calculated risks has paid significant dividends for customers with improved performance from the totally updated range.

SilverLine has been part of the WNT (one of CERATIZIT Group’s competence brands) product range for over 10 years, so it was time to look again at this key product and update it not only with the latest in cutting tool technology, but also expand its application range with new cutters being added to the already extensive portfolio. While cautious not to make change for change’s sake, the development team was tasked with improving the three key elements that give a solid carbide tool high performance, namely the carbide substrate, coating and geometry. The changes made to all three elements in SilverLine work in harmony to deliver significant improvements in metal removal rates and tool life.

The new substrate along with changes to cutter geometry have enabled the creation of a completely new core to the SilverLine cutters. Increasing flute numbers allowed for a larger core diameter to be created, this in turn generates much greater cutter rigidity and reduces cutter deflection with tensile strength increased by 50 per cent, thereby increasing overall process security. This along with associated changes to the chip gullet and the addition of through tool coolant also improved chip flow, reduced cutting forces and the cutter generates less heat and noise, while allowing cutting data to be increased between 20 and 40 per cent (material dependant) while tool life increases by as much as 50 per cent. Maximising this new performance is the use of the latest Dragonskin coating, this latest development of CERATIZIT’s multilayer coating is silver in colour and is compatible with most materials including stainless steel or steel, flame-cut, uncoated or scaled billets. The high temperature resistance of the coating makes it suitable for either wet or dry machining applications, with exceptional service life in either application area. “In short SilverLine cutters are now stronger, last longer and are faster than their predecessors,” says Adrian Fitts, Business Development Manager, CERATIZIT UK & Ireland. “Cutters are now available with 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 flutes dependent on application and diameter and with the burgeoning aerospace sector in mind we have added many more options when it comes to corner radii and cutter diameters.”

As with all successful product development processes the customer was central to many aspects of the changes to Silverline, not least the extension of the range to encompass not only greater choices in diameter and corner radii, but also cutter styles including ripper and Torus cutters. “We listened to customers who were asking for heavier-duty roughing cutters and, thanks to the increased core size and rigidity we can now offer a ripper version of SilverLine,” says Adrian Fitts. “As customers wanted to run faster this created a problem, higher cutting data equated to greater chip volume and evacuating those chips became an issue. Now, with the strengthened core, through tool coolant and Dragonskin coating, combined with a ripper-style geometry to create smaller chips, we can push tools harder as evacuation is no longer the issue it once was. For more specific high-speed applications when milling we’ve also added HA-style shanks to the standard range of SilverLine cutters. This plain shank is ideal for use in heat shrink and hydraulic chucks, allowing increased spindle speeds to be used.”

“SilverLine is a tremendous success story for CERATIZIT, especially here in the UK where it is one of our premium products and one of our best-selling product lines. Therefore, when the decision was made to update it, we had to be certain that we would be making changes that would both maintain and extend its reputation for delivering high performance metal removal across a range of applications. The success we are seeing with the new SilverLine confirms that the hard work that went into these developments has produced a superior product that will continue to deliver productivity gains for our customers,” says Tony Pennington, Managing Director, CERATIZIT UK & Ireland.