AEROSPACE


2.375” (60.5 mm) in size, with up to .20” (5.08 mm) tube walls. According to Cameron


Young, the tool bit plays an outsized role in precision facing and squaring of tube


ends. If a tool bit is constructed of an inferior material or excessively hardened, it can result in premature chipping of the cutting edge. When there is little


aerospace company, you


also have to meet the requirements of the orbital tube welding machine to create weld joints with a very high success rate,”


says Cameron Young, Manufacturing


Solutions Engineer, Tri Tool Technologies. Today, tube and pipe cutting products


help ensure the proper fit and alignment of the pieces to be welded to avoid misalignment, gaps, or uneven welds. Most are manually operated and perform machining operations such as cutting, severing, facing, and beveling. Facing involves cutting the end of a


pipe to achieve a flat and smooth surface with precise dimensions to ensure it can be securely and accurately connected to other components without gaps or leaks. When working with thick pieces of metal, it is often necessary to create a groove or bevel to facilitate proper penetration and fusion during welding. To further increase productivity without


sacrificing precision, field machinists need portable squaring equipment that can be used in tight access areas, such as within tube racks or a wing. “You need a tool that is compact


enough to actually do the prep well, but is also still portable that you can bring with you to your work site or take up on the ladder,” adds Cameron Young. For production-level tube facing, he


points to Tri Tool Technologies’ 300STS, a lightweight, portable facing machine for weld preparation on autogenous welding. The tube squaring tool has an industry-leading 9.5” clearance and can deliver rapid, repeatable, precision cuts within .001” on tubes .125” (3.2 mm) to


to no helix angle in a tool bit, it can cause severe chatter marks and screeching. The highest quality bits are designed


and given specialty coatings to maximise the number of cuts before cut quality is degraded while producing manageable chips with no signs of heat discolouration, a maximum fine surface finish, and an acceptable amount or no measurable burr. To meet aerospace requirements, the 300STS uses Tri Tool’s patented Durabits. “Many of our aerospace customers


are using these tools every day, all day,” explains Cameron Young. “In high production environments, it is critical that the tool and bits hold up to thousands of preps per month, sometimes thousands per week.”


Custom Machining Equipment Given the cutting-edge nature of aerospace applications, customised solutions may also be required. Although standard tube squaring products are available from several sources, most will not make modifications based on customer requests. Tri Tool Technologies, however, can produce variations of standard equipment through modifications and other customisations. This can include integrating controls, sensing technologies, or remote-control technology. In a recent example, the company


modified the 300STS to perform miter cuts up to 8 degrees based on a customer request. The ability to make miter cuts while maintaining the same flatness and surface finish requirements is ideal for adjusting the angles of tubes that don’t precisely fit in preparation for orbital welding. “To accomplish a two-degree offset,


for example, you might face each end with a one-degree angle so they meet up perfectly and the weld head can make the weld because the gap is extremely tight,” Cameron Young explains. Prototypes of the product were


20 / WELDING WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 01 - January 2024


introduced at the FabTech show in September 2023, and Tri Tool Technologies expects to release the miter model as a standard product in 2024. A new proprietary Inconel cutting


bit also originated from a request from a leading commercial space company building a new launch vehicle platform. To increase efficiency and accelerate project timelines, the company needed to optimise the squaring of difficult-to- machine Inconel tubing. The existing strategy and methods for cutting Inconel were not easily scalable and did not provide the extreme precision, reliability and consistency needed for the project. When the private space company


contacted Tri Tool Technologies, the company’s aerospace fabrication experts immediately recognised the need to develop a proprietary cutting bit specific to the customer’s application.


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