SHOP SOLUTIONS
cyclical downturn as many shops would do, David Prickett, sales manager, and Knust-Godwin management agreed they should work to diversify the company’s customer base. This would keep the doors open during lean times and keep the business primed for an oil & gas resurgence. Located in Katy, TX, a small town 30 miles west of Hous- ton, this precision machining company specializes in large, complex parts for oil fi eld instrumentation. Typical workpieces include fl ow diverters, electronics and manifold chassis, measurement and logging tools for directional drilling used in downhole oil and gas applications. Machine tools in its 238,000 ft2
(22,111-m2 ) facility
are able to drill holes up to 31' (9.5-m) deep, turn shafts nearly 21' (6.4 m) long, and mill parts 36' (11 m) across. An average workpiece measures 5' (1.5-m) long and 6" (152 mm) in diameter, is made of Inconel, Hastelloy, or a similar tough material, and might require 50–60 hours of machining. Up to several hundred hours of machine time per part is not uncommon. Knust-Godwin, however, doesn’t limit itself to manufac- turing parts for the oil industry. The company also services the semiconductor, medical, seismic and geophysical in- dustries. Its capabilities range from fi ve-axis CNC machin- ing and mill/turning to gundrilling, laser and electron beam welding, EDM, and even additive manufacturing. So it’s somewhat ironic that when the opportunity to machine wristwatch parts came along—some smaller than 0.40" (10 mm) in diameter—Knust-Godwin management asked, “Why not?” And there was some precedent. Knust-Godwin LLC
resulted from a merger of two Houston-area machine shops. Knust began as a precision watchmaker more than 50 years ago. Godwin opened its doors around the same time, and was focused on general machining. Both came to be experts in oil & gas machining and were eventually acquired by Schoeller Bleckmann Oilfi eld (SBO), which merged the two into a single company during the recent oil & gas slump. Programmer Cameron Birse learned of a Portland, OR, startup—VERO Watches—offering a new line of high-end timepieces. The fl edgling watch company was struggling with fi t and fi nish problems on prototypes from a local machine shop, and was looking for an alternate source. Birse alerted Prickett of the opportunity, the quote package was delivered, and Knust- Godwin soon found itself back in the watchmaking business. “Many of us were unaware of our roots,” said program- mer Chris Hurst. “Then one of the old-timers from Knust
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AdvancedManufacturing.org | December 2016
saw the drawings. ‘We used to make parts like that,’ he said. It turns out we came full circle.” Needless to say, machining technology has changed substantially over the past 50 years. Knust-Godwin quickly learned that what works for large parts is less effective on very small ones. Even though Hurst and his team were quite familiar with the diffi culties of titanium and high-nickel alloy machining, the far more machinable 316 stainless steel watch bodies were destroying tools quickly enough that ac- ceptance of future orders was in question.
Watch parts roughing was done with a CoroMill 390-07 indexable cutter with GC1130 grade carbide inserts.
“We started with an order for two sets of prototype parts,” said Hurst. “This includes the watch case itself, plus the back piece, the bezel, the crown, and a few other pieces. The biggest is around 1.2" [32 mm] across, while the smallest is a washer just 0.178" [4.5 mm] in diameter.” Most of the parts were machined on one of Knust-God-
win’s DMU 125 monoBLOCK universal machining centers from DMG Mori (Hoffman Estates, IL). With a large work volume and table load capacity of over 13,228 lb (6000 kg), the DMU was obviously overkill for the small parts, but the machine’s superb accuracy and 10,000-rpm spindle made it the logical choice for the project.
Despite the high level of machining technology, Hurst said they soon found themselves in trouble, “I don’t mind
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