July 26, 2016 Geometry of Precision

Volume 6 | Issue 1

Moore Tool built its reputation on delivering high-precision, high-accuracy machines to worldwide metalworking and optical industries.

They build the machines that help other original equipment manufacturers build their own products. This is no small responsibility and it’s pretty clear that a company with this kind of mission must be committed to excellence. After all, the machines OEMs need in order to produce their own high-quality products has to be notches above best-in-class. Moore Tool Company knows this better than most of its competitors – and the company’s commitment to excellence is evident in its impressive customer applications.

“If manufacturers cannot do the job they need to do on the industry’s available machining centers, those manufacturers come to us and we can engineer a solution for them and we can produce specialty machines designed to solve their manufacturing problems,” says Pete Brown, original sales manager for the Bridgeport, Conn. company. Moore Tool, with its legendary history of precision manufacturing technologies, has built its reputation on producing precision machinery for a wide variety of customers throughout the world’s metalworking and optical industries.

Bull’s Eye Accuracy
Customers searching for hair’s-breadth precision in their machinery will find exactly what they require in any one of Moore Tool’s four business units, which includes Moore Tool Company, Moore Nanotechnology Systems, Ring Precision Components, and Tooling Components & Systems. n Moore Tool Company, located in Bridgeport, Conn., is a manufacturer of jig grinders, measuring machines, derivative products, and accessories and also provides contract precision machining capabilities. The company designs and manufactures special-purpose, high-precision machine tools, rotary tables, hydrostatic spindles and accessories. It also offers remanufacturing and retrofitting of a variety of machine tools. This group sells to companies manufacturing equipment in industries including aerospace, automotive, electronics, and metalworking companies.

Moore Nanotechnology Sys-tems, Keene, N.H., manufactures standard machine tools and accessories for companies requiring ultra-precise machines, usually designed for diamond-turning and deterministic micro-grinding. “This equipment uses diamonds as the cutting tool and the machines are used for turning non-ferrous materials used in manufacturing reflective lenses,” says Brown. This equipment is typically sold into the optical industry and some of the equipment is used by companies needing to grind lenses for optical components including telescopes and infrared devices for night vision and a wide range of other applications.
• Ring Precision Components, located in Jamestown, N.Y., manufactures precision-hardened and ground parts from tool steels, stainless steels, powdered metals, and carbide. Some typical parts produced by the company include tool-, die-and-mold components and precision-machines OEM components.
• Tooling Components & Systems, with locations in Bridgeport and Cleveland, manufactures precision die sets, injection blow and injection mold bases, and thermoforming tools. The company also offers contract manufacturing services. “They sell primarily to the tool and die industry,” says Brown. “They make the machines that are used to make particular parts such as the end tab on a can of soda. They buy the dies sets from us and then they make all the intricate parts for that tab. They might also use some of the machines we manufacture to make the tools that are used in the die sets.”

The thermoforming tools manufactured at this location are used on machines that produce those Styrofoam containers that, among other things, are used by fast-food restaurants to keep our hamburgers warm.

Manufacturing Solutions
“We build precision machines as opposed to commodity-type machines like surface grinder or machining centers or lathes,” notes Brown. “Those commodity-type machines built by manufacturers around the world are different from the machines we design and manufacture, which are higher in accuracy. We are providing machinery that solves practical problems our customers bring to us to solve.”

This brand of innovative spirit still guides the company, and has been the driving force since the company’s inception in 1924. Started by Richard F. Moore, the company continues to operate under the guidance of the high standards of mechanical excellence set by Moore over three quarters of a century ago. That kind of commitment to excellence was not lost on the large landscape of this industry, for in 1974, American Machinist awarded Moore the AM Award, recognizing him as the man who ‘gave the world’s industry an additional decimal place of accuracy.’

Richard Moore, not completely satisfied in relying on his own expertise, sought and collaborated with a wide range of university researchers, and government and private laboratory scientists throughout the world with the goal of refining mechanical design principles that would help him and his company produce only the most
superior machines.

Today, more than 6,000 jig borers and 8,000 jig grinders have been manufactured by Moore Tool and many of these machines are still in use. Several hundred ultraprecision specialty machines have been designed and manufactured – all serving a wide range of industries throughout the world.

When Richard Moore talked about the geometry of his machines his customers knew exactly what he was talking about. “Our competitors don’t build the geometry into the machines like we do,” says Brown. “The jig grinders we build are guaranteed to position within 90 millionths of an inch in 18 inches of travel. This means that if you have something 18 inches long, the machine is accurate any place within that 18 inches to less than 90 millionths of an inch – and that’s real accuracy!”

Moore Tool does not wave good-bye once the company has sold a machine. “We continue to support them once they’ve purchased our machine until the time they no longer want the machine,” says Brown.

Not only are the company’s machines accurate, but they reduce production time as well. An example of this kind of engineering is a dicing machine Moore Tool built for one of its customers. “These machines are used in manufacturing integrated circuits, where you have an exposed circuit on a ceramic wafer. They need to dice the circuit. Most of the dicers in the industry cut in one direction only – but we designed a machine that would cut in both directions, so it produces product twice as fast as anything else on the market,” explains Brown, adding that this customer bought several of these machines.

Moore Tool envisions its future role in the industry as “pretty much the same as it is now – solving problems for our customers and designing and building machines to help them be more efficient and productive,” says Brown.

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