KV Tooling Wins First Place in ANCA’s Tool of the Year Competition

KV Tooling has won first place in ANCA’s industry-first competition, ‘ANCA Tool of the Year.’ The contest recognizes how the cutting tool industry has cultivated and refined its craft over the years to design beautiful tools, applying science to achieve a sub-micron surface finish and superior cutting performance.

“All finalists were of a very high standard and demonstrated a deep understanding for tool geometry as well as taking full use of ANCA’s software to design unique and special cutting tools,” said Pat Boland, ANCA co-founder. “We congratulate the winner KV Tooling, runner up Eshed Tools and Zakłady Mechaniczne Kazimieruk, to whom we gave a special creativity award for a daring Bat Man design.”

KV Tooling Systems’ president, Brian Beland, stated, “Competing with world-class tool grinding shops from around the world with same grinding machines and winning – regardless of the size of the shop – is something we are particularly proud of.

“Our entry was a very complex tool with many features incorporated into one tool,” Beland added. “We designed the cutting tool to satisfy a customer’s problem, where our one tool replaced a machining requirement that previously required six tools. The customer was very happy with the production gains and for us to submit to ANCA Tool of The Year. We believe winning the competition makes our company more marketable and will give us great exposure and hopefully expand our customer base.”

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The competition was based on the passion and the craft of tool making and celebrating the highly skilled tool grinding community.

The judging panel included:

• Pat Boland, co-founder and managing director at ANCA
• Ralph Van Hoorn, owner at Van Hoorn Carbide
• Thomson Mathew, product manager at ANCA

Measurement of surface finish determined by Alicona.

Measurement of profile and diameter determined by Zoller.

The top five tools were judged on the following criteria:

• Best surface finish in Ra (roughness average) value on the flute or gash surface
• The tool the that is closest to the nominal tolerance as stated on the drawing in terms of diameter and profile (tolerance on diameter is +/- 0.010mm and the tool is measured to 0.005)
• Tool that has been ground to the tightest tolerance as per the drawing (lowest tolerance)
• Level of complexity (tool with greatest number of steps)