Over 50 years of experience and know-how in high-quality drilling and milling
This statement applies equally to both companies, KLENK and NUM with NUMROTO. Decades of experience and research, cooperative partnerships – such as in this case between KLENK and NUM – and close collaboration with users and leading research institutes, serve to guarantee successful and high-quality drilling and milling tools. These tools are used mainly in high-tech sectors such as the aviation, automotive and medical equipment industries.
The family business KLENK was established in 1959 in Balzheim in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and for over 50 years has specialised in the development, production, use and sale of high-quality carbide machining tools for drilling, countersinking, reaming and cutting. KLENK currently has over 100 excellently trained employees, many of whom have completed their commercial or industrial training at the company. This is how KLENK ensures that its knowledge and know-how of the production of specialist solid carbide tools, which account for around 85% of KLENK’s sales, are in the best hands. Moreover, personal, skilled and technical advice and project planning with customers and partners are particularly important.
And this is where NUM comes in: the productive collaboration with KLENK over the last 15 years is based on an honest and subject-oriented partnership that involves pursuing and realising a common goal, in keeping with the motto of “NUM CNC solutions provide machine manufacturers and users with a competitive advantage”. KLENK also secures its know-how digitally with a multi-user database from NUMROTO. This enables KLENK to meet its own high expectations of full reproducibility of tools with repeat orders thanks to the NUMROTO data structure. All of KLENK’s machines are connected to the multi-user database, making it possible to act flexibly within identically configured machine groups; this facilitates short reaction times and optimal capacity utilisation. Added to this is the benefit that every employee can work on almost every machine, as all machines use the same NUMROTO control system.
Its close connection to customers and suppliers enables KLENK to set itself apart from the masses and develop the perfect tool tailored to meet the needs of the customer. The images on this page are examples of the results of such developments. The flexibility of the NUMROTO software solution plays an important role in the process as a whole and significantly simplifies the procedure. From planning, simulation and, of course, production, to documentation and the subsequent management and securing of data – all of this can be done with NUMROTO.
Tools for the aviation industry
KLENK has been working successfully with the aviation industry for a long time, and in this industry, high-performance tools are required for the machining of aluminium, titanium and composite materials. With milling tools, flute design and tooth geometry in the area around the corner radius are crucial to the resulting surface quality in cutting, as well as to the lifetime of the cutter. In-process measurement guarantees a high level of accuracy, even across larger series.
CFRP – carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer: the trend material of the future!
CFRP is becoming increasingly popular, and KLENK is continuously developing new tool geometries for this material. CFRP is used to manufacture resilient and robust components with relatively little weight. In the aviation industry, CFRP is frequently used in combination with other materials such as titanium or aluminium. This results in connection points at which two or more different materials have to be drilled through simultaneously. Most of the materials used have specific, opposing properties, which make machining in the material package a real challenge. In addition to its undisputed positive properties, CFRP also has a crucial disadvantage: if the material is drilled or milled, it becomes extremely abrasive and quickly causes heavy wear to the tool. This is especially problematic because the machining results for CFRP applications must meet the highest possible quality standards. These require first-class surface finishes and the maintenance of diameter tolerances, as well as the avoidance of delamination and fibre projection. The specialist tools from KLENK meet all these requirements.
(September 2014)