Here is an interview with Mark Summers, President of CNC Software at Mastercam.

Mastercam stood out to me as one of the few manufacturing companies that made “Going Green” an issue worth mentioning.  Even the smallest steps taken to minimize the damage done by industry is immensely important in these modern environmental times. With all the harm that manufacturing potentially causes the earth and how much we rely on manufacturing it to keep our economy running it seems more important then ever to bring our attention to this. Society is held together by many things, including technology and manufacturing, and companies like this will be the future of sustainable manufacturing in the coming decades.

What are the environmental efforts being made right now by the manufacturing industry as a whole?

Mark: I don’t know if there is enough information to summarize the efforts made by the manufacturing industry but my guess is that many businesses are at least thinking about these issues and many will act in the next few years in various ways.

Where does Mastercam stand in this context, how do you measure up or exceed expectations and standards for “Going Green”?.

Mark: The expectations are vague and not official unless you’re LEEDS certified so it’s up to the decision makers in each company to decide what level of sustainability to integrate. However I think we measure up pretty well in the green department. We have made both small improvements and large improvements in the way we operate our facility and the way we use energy.

Small ideas include using dishes, glasses and ceramic coffee mugs instead of throw away items. (We have six energy star dishwashers). We compost all of our coffee grounds and food waste so as not to use fossil fuel to haul garbage around for no good reason. In our recent building addition we made sure to use low V.O.C. paint and PVC free carpet to improve our indoor air quality. We’ve installed a fresh air heat exchanger so that we don’t lose valuable heat when bringing in fresh air from outside. All of the windows in the building open if occupants want fresh air when weather permits and a large amount of windows allow us to use more natural light rather than electric lights, which are energy efficient fluorescent lights. All of the lumber in the addition was FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. All of our printing is done on 100% recycled paper with environmental ink and over time we have been printing less and supplying more documents electronically. Many of the employees work from home 2 or 3 days a week to reduce fuel usage.

Like most businesses the real opportunity to make a difference in energy usage is the way a building is heated and cooled. Our 50,000 sq. ft. building is 100% geothermal and does not have a backup system. We have 46 wells that are 300 feet deep that extract either heat or cold out of the ground to heat or cool the building and make our hot water as well. Since the only energy source we use is electricity we decided to install a 72kw photovoltaic system to make some of our own. The solar system is newly installed but it appears we are making about 30% of the electricity that we use. That portion of our electricity will cost the same for about 30 years which is the predicted life of the solar panels.

Do you think technology has the ability to make our society sustainable, what social and scientific steps do you feel are needed to make this happen.

Mark: Yes, I think we have the technology to be 100% sustainable but it will take time and large investments and a change in our living standards. The laws of nature will eventually demand that we all become sustainable in our work and home life and making changes sooner rather than later will allow a smoother and less painful transition. The social steps that need to happen are mostly financial to start with since cost seems to have a way of getting everyone’s attention. Keeping fuel prices high via taxes will keep the pressure on all of us to pay greater attention to the way we live. Lobbying for low fuel costs to keep the economy going is short term thinking and just putting off the inevitable. A small amount of pain now might avoid real problems in the future. This theoretical fuel tax revenue could be used for tax credits and rebates to help fund more homes and businesses that invest in alternative energy. If the U.S. government can find a way to spend over half a trillion dollars to fight a war we can surely find the same amount of money to invest in more clean energy ideas that could actually avoid a war.

You were a “green” company before “green” really existed. What is the history of your company’s progress with its environmental efforts?

Mark: We have always tried to pay attention to our energy and material usage. My depression era parents might have had some influence in this area. We built our first building in 1989 about five miles from our current building and incorporated a geothermal system and passive solar system. Oil deliveries and burning oil in a furnace never really made much sense to me.

Are you noticing any other manufacturing companies going green or being socially responsible? If not, why do you think this is and what would it take to change this trend.

Mark: I know of one local shop that is environmentally aware and is in the process of installing a 32kw photovoltaic system to make some of their electricity. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund offers a generous rebate for this type of system and I am certain that other shops are acting. Some businesses are motivated to save money and some are motivated to save the environment. Either way works.

What is your view on the peak oil crisis and how it will and has affected industry and manufacturing?

The peak oil crisis and high energy cost spike was a much needed wake up call for all of us. Hopefully the recent drop in oil prices won’t allow us to forget that we need to pay attention and make some changes. I think most people realize that was just a little taste of what’s coming and we need to be ready when cheap energy is no longer available. There are many ways to “be ready”. Take advantage of the energy incentive programs that are available right now. Hire an energy company to audit your operation and then act on at least some of the advice. Use less energy and make some of your own. Almost any business can afford a few solar panels and encourage recycling and shutting the lights off. Do something and then tell people about it, in that order.

Are there any new greening initiatives at your company, underway or being discussed?

We’re not obsessed with green ideas since we still need to spend most of our time operating the business so it stay healthy but we do talk about energy and environmental ideas regularly. Lately we have been monitoring many of our electronic devices to see how much power they used when turned “off”. You might be surprised to learn that many of these devices such as computers, printers, fax machines, cable boxes, dvd players etc. steal your power all the time. A $25 Kill A Watt meter will help you uncover these electric injustices and will surely pay for itself in short order provided you act on your findings. Another current project is to add more computerized controls to our HVAC system to make sure it runs only when necessary. For example, many people forget to adjust the heat or AC when they leave at night or the weekends. A computer can make that adjustment easily and with more consistency than a human and save lots of energy in the process. In other words, an efficient system that isn’t controlled properly isn’t really that efficient.

How does the lax environmental regulations in China and India fit into the global environmental solution?

Well, we all live in the same world and the responsibility level of other countries affects us all. My opinion is that the countries that care about the goal of sustainability and environmental responsibility should first offer technical and financial help to the countries that need it if they can. If the offending countries ignore sincere help then the heat should be turned up and we should reduce or avoid doing business with countries that don’t toe the line. Countries are just a collection of people and policies and sometimes a repercussion needs to be felt before action takes place. When my kids leave the lights on in their room I take the bulbs out of the offending light to send a small message. A country might need a larger message in a similar fashion.

What new and exciting things are happening right now over at Mastercam?

We are continuously working on new ideas for our CAD CAM product called Mastercam as we have been for 25 years and this year has proven to be successful as well. Our cautious but constant growth allows us to serve our customers as they expect now and in the foreseeable future and we will continue our ever present goal of reaching sustainability.

Special Thanks to Mark Summers for taking time to answer some of our questions. To read more about MasterCam’s Green initiatives, check out this article.

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There are many different categories of lathes. Some of the major categories are listed below.

Woodworking Lathes: Woodworking lathes are the oldest variety. All other varieties are descended from these simple lathes. An adjustable horizontal metal rail – the tool rest – between the material and the operator accommodates the positioning of shaping tools, which are usually hand-held. With wood, it is common practice to press and slide sandpaper against the still-spinning object after shaping to smooth the surface made with the metal shaping tools.

Metalworking Lathes: In a metalworking lathe, metal is removed from the workpiece using a hardened cutting tool, which is usually fixed to a solid moveable mounting, either a toolpost or a turret, which is then moved against the workpiece using hand-wheels and/or computer controlled motors. These (cutting) tools come in a wide range of sizes and shapes depending upon their application.

Cue Lathes: Cue lathes function similar to turning and spinning lathes allowing for a perfectly radially-symmetrical cut for billiard cues. They can also be used to refinish cues that have been worn over the years.

Glassworking Lathes: Glassworking lathes are similar in design to other lathes, but differ markedly in how the workpiece is modified. Glassworking lathes slowly rotate a hollow glass vessel over a fixed or variable temperature flame. The source of the flame may be either hand-held, or mounted to a banjo/cross slide that can be moved along the lathe bed. The flame serves to soften the glass being worked, so that the glass in a specific area of the workpiece becomes malleable, and subject to forming either by inflation (“glassblowing”), or by deformation with a heat resistant tool. Such lathes usually have two headstocks with chucks holding the work, arranged so that they both rotate together in unison. Air can be introduced through the headstock chuck spindle for glassblowing. The tools to deform the glass and tubes to blow (inflate) the glass are usually handheld.

Metal Spinning Lathes: In metal spinning, a disk of sheet metal is held perpendicularly to the main axis of the lathe, and tools with polished tips (spoons) are hand held, but levered by hand against fixed posts, to develop large amounts of torque/pressure that deform the spinning sheet of metal. Metal spinning lathes are almost as simple as woodturning lathes (and, at this point, lathes being used for metal spinning almost always are woodworking lathes).

Ornamental turning Lathes: The ornamental turning lathe was developed around the same time as the industrial screw-cutting lathe in the nineteenth century. It was used not for making practical objects, but for decorative work – ornamental turning. By using accessories such as the horizontal and vertical cutting frames, eccentric chuck and elliptical chuck, solids of extraordinary complexity may be produced by various generative procedures.

Reducing Lathe: A reducing lathe is a specialized lathe that is designed with this feature, and which incorporates a mechanism similar to a pantograph, so that when the “reading” end of the arm reads a detail that measures one inch (for example), the cutting end of the arm creates an analogous detail that is (for example) one quarter of an inch.

Rotary Lathes: A lathe in which softwood, like spruce or pine, or hardwood, like birch, logs are turned against a very sharp blade and peeled off in one continuous or semi-continuous roll.

Watchmaker’s Lathe: Watchmakers lathes are delicate but precise metalworking lathes, usually without provision for screw-cutting, and are still used by horologists for work such as the turning of balance shafts. A handheld tool called a graver is often used in preference to a slide mounted tool.

The design of lathes can vary greatly depending on the intended application; however, basic features are common to most types. These machines consist of (at the least) a headstock, spindle, bed, carriage, and tailstock. Better machines are solidly constructed with broad bearing surfaces for stability, and manufactured with great precision.

Headstock: The headstock is required to be made as robust as possible due to the cutting forces involved, which can distort a lightly built housing, and induce harmonic vibrations that will transfer through to the workpiece reducing the quality of the finished workpiece. The headstock consist of the headstock, Speed change Mechanism, House of the main spindle, and change gears.

Spindle: A spindle is a rotating axis of the machine, which often has a shaft at its heart. The shaft itself is called a spindle, but also, in shop-floor practice, the word often is used metonymically to refer the entire rotary unit, including not only the shaft itself, but its bearings and anything attached to it.

Bed: The bed is a robust base that connects to the headstock and permits the carriage and tailstock to be aligned parallel with the axis of the spindle. This is facilitated by hardened and ground ways which restrain the carriage and tailstock in a set track. There are different types of Bed: Inverted V beds, flat beds, combination of inverted V and flat beds.

Carriage: The carriage holds the tool bit and moves it longitudinally (turning) or perpendicularly (facing) under the control of the operator. The operator moves the carriage manually via the hand-wheel or automatically by engaging the feed shaft with the carriage feed mechanism. This provides some relief for the operator as the movement of the carriage becomes power assisted. The hand-wheels on the carriage and its related slides are usually calibrated, both for ease of use and to assist in making reproducible cuts. The carriage typically comprises a top casting, known as the saddle and the side casting, known as the apron.

Tailstock: The tailstock also known as a footstock, is a device often used as part of an engineering lathe wood-turning lathe, or used in conjunction with a rotary table on a milling machine. The tailstock is a tool holder directly mounted on the spindle axis, opposite the headstock. The spindle does not rotate but does travel longitudinally under the action of a lead-screw and hand-wheel. The spindle includes a taper to hold drill bits, centers and other tooling. The tailstock can be positioned along the bed and clamped in position as required. There is also a provision to offset the tailstock from the spindle axis; this is useful for turning small tapers.

A lathe is a machine tool which rotates the work piece on an axis to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation. Lathes are usually used in woodturning, metalworking, metal spinning, and glass working. A metal lathe or metalworking lathe is a large class of  lathes designed for precisely machining relatively hard materials.

They were originally designed to machine metals; however, with the advent of plastics and other materials, and with their inherent versatility, they are used in a wide range of applications, and a broad range of materials.  In machining terminology, where the larger context is already understood, they are usually called lathes, or else referred to by more specific subtypes names such as tool-room lathe, turret lathes, etc. These rigid machine tools remove materials from a rotating workpiece via typically linear movements of various cutting tools such as tool bit and drill bits.

Most suitable equipped metalworking lathes can also be used to produce most solids of revolution, plane surface and screw threads or helices. Ornamental lathes can produce three-dimensional solids of incredible complexity. The material can be held in place by either one of two centers, at least one of which can be moved horizontally to accommodate varying material lengths. Other work holding methods include clamping the work about the axis of rotation using a chuck or faceplate using clamps.

When a workpiece is fixed between the headstock and the tailstock, it is said to be “between centers”. When a workpiece is supported at both ends, it is more stable, and more force may be applied to the workpiece at a right angle to the axis of rotation, without fear that the workpiece may break loose.  When a workpiece is fixed only to the spindle at the headstock end, the work is said to be “face work”. When a workpiece is supported in this manner, less force may be applied to the workpiece, in case the workpiece rip free. Thus, most work must be done axially, towards the headstock, or at the right angles, but gently.

When a workpiece is mounted with a certain axis or rotation, worked, then remounted with a new axis or rotation, this is referred to as “eccentric turning” or “multi axis turning”. The result is that various cross sections of the workpiece are rationally symmetric, but the workpiece as a whole is not rationally symmetric.