GlossaryKind of term: Manufacturing termTooling
What is tooling?
Tooling is the cutting tools that remove material in the spindle or on the turret, with their holders: cutters, drills, reamers, taps and turning tools.
On the milling side that means end mills, indexable cutters and thread mills, on the lathe turning and grooving tools, and the holding side covers collets and shrink-fit chucks as well as holders. Much tooling combines a holder with a replaceable cutting part such as an insert. Standard tooling comes from a catalogue and is often already in the tool crib. Special tooling is made or modified for one feature, such as a form cutter or a custom step drill.
What does tool selection depend on?
The choice depends on the geometry of the feature (depth, internal radius, thread, form), the material and its ISO material group, the required tolerance and roughness, the machine (spindle interface, speed, power, magazine pockets), access and batch size. Cutting material and coating help decide which cutting data and tool life are achievable: high-speed steel, carbide, cermet, ceramic, CBN and diamond each have their field. The holder counts too: its runout and stiffness affect size, roughness and tool life.
How does tooling work in practice?
A route soon uses a whole set of tools, for example for roughing, finishing, internal radii, spot drilling, drilling, reaming, tapping and chamfering. Each tool has to be available, preset and fit in the magazine; a standard set kept in the machine shortens setup. Tooling adds cost in two ways. Wear uses up tool life and counts per piece, depending strongly on material and cutting data. Special tooling is a one-off outlay that you list separately or spread over an expected volume. More tools in a route also means more tool-change time per cycle.
What is tooling often confused with?
Tooling is not workholding: the tool cuts, the workholding holds the part. In English the word also often means product-specific fixtures, moulds or dies, as in tooling cost for a casting or a moulding; those belong to one product and are usually charged as a one-off investment. This entry covers cutting tools and their holders.
Frequently asked questions
When does special tooling pay off?
When the saving per piece over the expected quantities recovers the purchase, or when it saves a setup or an operation. Repeat work shifts that balance compared with a one-off. Keep the purchase separate from the piece price so what is one-off stays visible.
How do I put tool wear into the price?
A common approach is the price per cutting edge divided by tool life, times the part's cutting time. That is an estimating convention; actual wear depends on material, cutting data and setup. In tough or hardened materials it is worth keeping that cost visible.