Although sharpening of saw blades is no longer CST’s main service, a
few employees continue to work in that area of the shop, using machines
that in some cases date back 20 years.
have four or five engineers on staff,” he notes.
CST has also expanded from serving a few states to all 50
states, Canada and Mexico. Weaver says the company used to
work mostly with the furniture industry and now serves flooring, log homes, cabinetry and millwork. The company has
also increased its presence among distributors.
New markets
Another market that has opened up for CST is machinery
manufacturers. According to Weaver, the logic was simple.
“We started going to machinery manufacturers and saying
‘A machine’s no good without tooling, and tooling’s no good
without a machine, so why not put them together? They’re going to eventually get together at some time or another.’”
Now CST is working to be in on the initial sale of machinery
so it can put together a tool package for the time of delivery.
Shop tour
Jobs for cutter heads for both carbide and diamond insert
tooling begin with a work order from the company’s engineering department. From there, the lathe operator pulls and
cuts the appropriate amount of material for the job. Jobs are
scanned as they move through each department, so management is able to check on an order’s progress via computer as it
moves around the floor.
Once the material is cut, it goes to a Mori Seiki turning
lathe and then on to a five-axis Mori Seiki CNC milling machine. Carbide inserts are machined on a Tigra insert grinder, or in some cases it is loaded robotically into a Schneeberg-er insert grinder, one of CST’s more recent purchases.
After grinding, the cutterhead and inserts are taken to an
adjacent area where the cutterheads are black oxided and the
insert knives are installed. Before shipping, the heads are put
on a Haimer balancer and checked on a Parlec inspection
machine.
“The bodies are made the same way for diamond or carbide,” Weaver explains. “The way we cut them on a machine
is a little different, but otherwise it’s the same; the steel is
cut, then it’s turned on the CNC lathe and milled on the
