Ingrained
innovation
USA-headquartered solid carbide round shank cutting tool manufacturer MA Ford is celebrating 100
years, with its UK subsidiary having notched up just over 20. Andrew Allcock visited the UK operation’s
new location in Derby and heard about the company’s strengths, new products and latest initiatives
As a medium-sized rm of 400
employees globally that operates
almost totally through distribution,
David Ward, MA Ford Europe (https://is.gd/
pinigo) managing director, agrees that it is,
naturally, not as prominent as are the
global cutting tool giants, but adds: “The
competition know us really well”. And that
is because its high performance, multi- ute
end-mills and other tools deliver on the high
performance promise. Innovative cutting
tool development is rooted in the
company’s history, which CEO Robert Hill
explained at an event held in Derby in
June.
With its
cutting tool
beginnings in the
manufacture of HSS
rotary les, MA Ford
TOOLING TRACK RECORD & FOCUS UNDERPIN CONTINUING SUCCESS
reached a zenith in the late 1930s with a
workforce of some 300 – carbide designs
were included by then. The death of owner
Matthew Ford spurred a transfer of
ownership in 1942, while a drop in demand
post-war ultimately saw a broadening of
product and related innovation get underway
in the late 1940s, under president Mal
Morancy of the owning family.
This phase marked the Davenport, Iowaheadquartered
company’s second
reinvention, in fact – the rst being the
original creation of the hand- le business in
1922 by Matthew Ford and John R Brooks,
which saw Ford’s Packsnug car luggage
manufacturing business, established in
1919 (hence 100 years), make a transition.
A result of this second phase of innovation
was the Uni ute countersink, which became
MA Ford’s “ rst major product”, says Hill,
who worked with its
inventor, Novin
Butenbach. Following
Matthew Ford’s fi rst business was making the
Packsnug luggage system for cars such as this
Inset: top, UK managing director David Ward;
below, MA Ford CEO Robert Hill
Uni ute, another notable Butenbach
development took in the Hi-Roc drill, which
became the standard in aerospace, with
many copying the product.
The 1960s saw the company became a
major supplier of carbide drills to IBM for its
circuit board manufacturing duties
(Butenbach behind the original designs,
again), with this becoming a major business
segment for the company. The following
decade saw engineering manager Lee
Schneider convert the company’s hydraulic/
cam-driven ute grinders to computer
control, using a Data General Micro Nova
computer to produce a 5-axis machine (the
company already had a history of designing
and making its own production equipment).
A plant dedicated to the production of
circuit board drills and routers was opened
in 1979 at Vero Beach, Florida, with MA Ford
building all the CNC equipment to ll the
factory to produce the drills. It was not until
1985 that standard tool grinding equipment
Left: one of MA Ford’s multi-fl ute solid
carbide cutters and, right, one of the
latest, UK-produced ceramic end-mills
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