YMT Limited Toolholding that’s fit for purpose

UK – More than a decade ago, Diebold introduced the first contact-shrink unit. That was a milestone in modern shrink-fit technology and the company built on the lessons learned to develop inductive shrink units, chiller units, and integrated tool-settings systems.

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It is easy to think of shrink-fit technology as a relatively new technique. However, open-flame heating has been used to shrink-fit parts together since before the industrial revolution. The first documented application was to heat and then shrink iron rims onto wagon wheels.

Measuring device allows speedy multi-tasking

This method was then applied to smaller items, such as heating rings or bearings onto shafts. Eventually, open-flame units were developed to heat shrink-fit chucks using carbide tooling. These systems, as well as the ubiquitous oxy-acetylene torch, remain in use in some workshops to this day.

Hot-air shrink units replace open-flame designs

For safety reasons, hot-air shrink units were offered as an alternative to the open-flame designs. The main drawback of hot air was the time required to heat a chuck sufficiently to change a cutting tool. It offered the opportunity to automate the process to some degree, but this didn’t compensate of the long cycle time.

In 1992, Tooling Innovations in California obtained a US patent for shrink-fit tooling, and for an inductive shrinking unit. The machine that was introduced was very powerful, but also very large. That unit developed high power in a relatively undefined area, which resulted in overheating of the cutting tools.

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