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BIG KAISER to Become BIG DAISHOWA

12/15/2021

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PLEASE NOTE:  Its a direct result of this announcement we have made some navigation changes on our website to redirect Big Kaiser to BIG Daishowa which has resulted in renaming both their TOOLING page and WORKHOLDING Page URL.   All of the information and articles written about Big Kaiser is still here on our website, albeit the actual URL in your bookmark may have changed.  The hot links above will take you to the updated information. 
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Hoffman Estates, IL - BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc. is excited to share important news concerning the name of its company. BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc. will change its name to BIG DAISHOWA Inc., effective January 1, 2022. 

“BIG DAISHOWA is a global leader of tooling systems, and we have been a member of the BIG DAISHOWA group of companies for many years,” said Jack Burley, President & COO. “The name change is a natural evolution in this relationship. Being known as BIG DAISHOWA in North America will strengthen our corporate presence on a global scale.

“Our customers won’t notice any change in our business day-to-day,” Burley said. “They will receive the same superior products, personal support and performance guarantee we’ve been delivering for more than 30 years.”
The name change will not impact operations, product lines, staff, distribution or licensing agreements in North America. The company will continue to offer the same high-precision tool holders, cutting and boring tools, workholding, tool measurement systems and accessories manufactured in Japan, Europe and the United States.

As a member of the BIG DAISHOWA Group (Osaka, Japan), BIG DAISHOWA Inc. has grown into a recognized global tooling provider, with manufacturing facilities in North America, Switzerland and Japan.

​In addition, BIG DAISHOWA is the North American representative of Speroni tool measuring machines, Sphinx high performance drills, mptec measuring stands, Tekusa spindle cleaners and the UNILOCK zero-point workholding system.
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You May Have a BIG-PLUS Spindle and Not Even Know It

7/18/2018

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By Jack Burley
Many shops are unaware that a lot of their spindles are BIG-PLUS, so they don’t realize the capabilities they possess that this system provides. If you identify these spindles on your floor and want to start taking advantage of them, there are some things you should know
How to check if you have a Big Plus spindle
The easiest way to figure out whether you have a BIG-PLUS spindle is to place a standard tool into the spindle and see how much of a gap there is between the tool holder flange face and spindle face. Without BIG-PLUS, the standard gap should be visible, or about .125"
I was recently chatting with our friends at SPS Spindle Parts and Service, LLC (Goffstown, NH). They are, to my understanding, the only certified BIG-PLUS® spindle grinder in America that performs onsite regrinds. Chris Vigneault, their onsite grinding manager, explained that most of their onsite visits, BIG-PLUS or not, are the result of a crash or poor drawbar retention that allows a tool to loosen in the spindle. That isn’t usually surprising news, but Vigneault explained that their testing and examination process often does reveal something else that is very surprising for customers: “One of the things that most customers are unaware of is that a lot of their spindles are BIG-PLUS and they simply don’t know it,” he said. “Not all, but a lot of customers lately are looking for that ability and just don’t know that they already have it.”

This is common after the purchase of a used machine tool, but shops are even more surprised when they hear this news about new machines. There are a couple of reasons this happens:
Big Plus Spindle gap
If it is BIG-PLUS, the gap is half of this amount, or only .062 in (shown here). These values change depending on 30 taper, 40 taper or 50 taper sizes, but the gap is visibly less than usual.
  • More than 150 machine tool builders are licensed to use and make BIG-PLUS on original equipment. Sometimes, to lower costs, instead of stocking two different spindles they will grind all their spindles to BIG-PLUS specifications, making it a standard option. When those machines go from manufacturing to the market or the sales team, that message may not travel with it to the sales team and, in turn, doesn’t make it to the customer. In other cases, even when builders make it clear that BIG-PLUS is an option, every machine in that series is still equipped with the system and registered in the builder’s system. Those who don’t choose the option simply don’t receive some of the supporting documents about care, usage and tool selection.
  • Another way BIG-PLUS spindles make it to the floor without shops knowing is that the in-house installation supervisor may be told by the OEM’s application engineer, but that information doesn’t necessarily flow much further than that.
All of which begs the question, how do you find out if you have a BIG-PLUS spindle?

We have learned over the years which builders are making their spindles to BIG-PLUS as a standard or as an option, and on which models. So when I visit a customer or talk to them over the phone, I ask what brands of machines they use and compare this with the master list of authorized machine tool builders for BIG-PLUS. However, the easiest way to figure it out is to place a standard tool into the spindle and see how much of a gap there is between the tool holder flange face and spindle face. Without BIG-PLUS, the standard gap should be visible, or about .12 in. If it is BIG-PLUS, the gap is half of this amount, or only .06 in. These values change depending on 30 taper, 40 taper or 50 taper sizes, but the gap is visibly less than usual.

If you identify BIG-PLUS spindles on your floor and you want to start taking advantage, there are some things you should know. First, if you’ve been using standard V-flange tools in that spindle, you likely won’t be able to realize the full benefits of the system. Over time, standard tooling will wear the spindle in ways that change its geometries. “We were just at a shop in Connecticut checking out a BIG-PLUS spindle,” recalled Vigneault. “Because of the way it wears when you don’t use BIG-PLUS tooling – which is exactly the way this customer was using the machine – the face was very heavy, or oversized. If we were grinding it back into spec, it would probably take quite a bit of work. We would have to take a lot of material off the face to get there.”

Because both taper and face contact are what make the system shine, the geometry is critical. If someone trying to transition to BIG-PLUS tooling after learning they have the spindle doesn’t understand that, they won’t experience the performance they expect. There’s also the factor of maintenance.

If a shop didn’t know it had BIG-PLUS machines, it’s a safe bet they didn’t take the preventive steps to help preserve the crucial geometry. These include keeping the spindle, tools and carts clean; misaligned automatic tool changer arms can also harm a BIG-PLUS spindle. These very reasons are why we offer spindle and tool taper cleaners, as well as arm alignment tools. Also, resist the temptation to use less expensive, unlicensed dual-contact tools if you want to give the system a shot. These tool makers do not have the master gauges necessary to create the correct geometry . . . for reference, read my Depth of Cut column titled “Is BIG-PLUS an International Standard?” It shares comparative test results and details the risks.

There’s really one proven way to restore a BIG-PLUS spindle to proper specifications: with a certified regrind. Just as tool makers need the right gauges and measuring devices, so do spindle grinders. If you discover you have BIG-PLUS spindles and want to take advantage, keep these factors in mind to see what the system can do.
Jack Burley is the vice president of sales and engineering at BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc., 2600 Huntington Boulevard, Hoffman Estates, IL 60192, 847-228-4011, Fax: 847-228-0881, jack.burley@us.bigkaiser.com, www.bigkaiser.com.

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Western Tool Open House, San Jose 2017

9/22/2017

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Western Tool & Supply Open House 2017 San Jose
Western Tool Open House 2017 Next Generation Tooling Booth
We where very excited to meet and greet many of our customers at the 2017 Western Tool & Supply Open House.

 It was held at their San Jose, CA. on September 21- 22, 2017.
We featured quite a few featured products from our principals during the two day event. It was great discussing lots of technical applications that machinists brought to us! ​
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Is BIG-PLUS An International Standard?

3/9/2016

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More and more, we are asked this fairly simple question from shops who want to purchase BIG-PLUS® dual contact tooling from sources other than us. One would certainly think that this must be the situation, given that more than 100 of the world’s top selling machine tool builders have adopted the BIG-PLUS spindle system as their own standard. The truthful answer to anyone who asks is that this system has not been standardized by any governing body such as ISO, DIN, JIS, or ASME.
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This comparison of licensed BIG-PLUS vs. unlicensed BIG-PLUS tooling shows how little or no taper contact in the unlicensed tool holder can allow “float” in the spindle taper with no positive radial location, causing large cutter runout and immediate fretting corrosion on that spindle face that can severely damage the spindle.
BIG Daishowa, the original developer of this system and a major reason that it has been so widely accepted throughout the world, still holds all of the proprietary information and, more importantly, the grand master gages that are used for reproducing spindles and tooling. Access to this information and gaging is well protected by BIG and is only provided to those companies who acquire a license agreement, mostly to protect the integrity of the system, which uses very close tolerances in order to function at its designed performance level.
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The popularity of BIG-PLUS has surged over the past ten years as many shops have tried the system and have witnessed for themselves the huge benefits in higher performance and accuracy over standardized taper contact tooling systems, such as CAT or BT. Other dual contact systems, such as HSK, have also seen a rise in popularity for similar reasons, but perhaps not with all of the same benefits of BIG-PLUS. Unfortunately, all of this increased popularity and demand has been accompanied by a surge in unlicensed copies to the market that offer all kinds of promises and prices never seen before.
BUYER BEWARE
I cannot fault a shop for purchasing cheap dual contact tooling after being told by their supplier that it will work just as good as the originals for half the price. After all, human nature wants to find the best offer at the best price – that sort of deal is capitalism at its best. As consumers, we are all confronted with choices every day about buying similar products that do similar functions from a wide range of suppliers and costs. For me personally, I usually decide to buy cheap only when I know the product will be used one time and then thrown away. On all other purchases, I’m in it for the long haul and willing to pay higher prices. At the end of the day, I want to be confident I made the right choice for the long term, and I’m willing to pay more for my peace of mind.
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Master gages for tooling are quite common. Generally all of them are traceable to a known master to compare the accuracy for rate of taper for production of tool holders, such as CAT or BT. ISO dual contact systems such as HSK rely on the use of a grand master gage that all other master gages are produced to, thereby guaranteeing that all HSK tool holders are the same everywhere in the world. Our company decided to find out how the world’s leading suppliers of HSK tool holders compared to the tolerances of the ISO standard. After acquiring more than 30 HSK-A63 taper tools from our competitors from all over the world and making a detailed quality inspection of the taper itself, we found that 50 percent of the samples were not in tolerance.
Perhaps the developers of HSK were overly critical of the functional limits and tolerances for the standard, given that 50 percent of most tools in use today are out of tolerance. In my opinion, this could be possible based on the very thin cross section of HSK tapers that allows for tool holders to expand elastically more than it was designed for.

On the opposite side however, we have BIG-PLUS that relies on elastic deformation of the spindle, not the tool holder, therefore requiring a much stricter control of tolerances, even in comparison to HSK. This means anyone who is in the market for BIG-PLUS ‘dual contact tooling’ should also consider this simple statement:

​Only a licensed supplier of BIG-PLUS has master gages that are traceable to the BIG grand master gages and have the dimensions and tolerances provided to do it right. Everyone else is guessing and using a sample BIG-PLUS tool holder as their own master gage – a practice that any quality expert will advise against.
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Unless all of the tools are marked “BIG-PLUS® Spindle System-License BIG DAISHOWA SEIKI,” the use of tooling not made by BIG Daishowa or its licensees may result in unsatisfactory performance and/or damage to very expensive spindles.
What are the consequences to a poorly researched choice in BIG-PLUS tooling? Unless all of the tools are marked “BIG-PLUS® Spindle System-License BIG DAISHOWA SEIKI,” the use of tooling not made by BIG Daishowa or its licensees may result in unsatisfactory performance and/or damage to very expensive spindles. Conditions producing such unsatisfactory performance include:
  • Distance between flange face and gauge line diameter more than specification-little or no face contact occurs; tool holders provide only taper contact and no benefit of BIG-PLUS.
  • Distance between flange face and gauge line diameter less than specification-face contact only; tool holders “float” in spindle taper with no positive radial location. Large cutter runout and fretting corrosion on spindle face occurs immediately. Severe spindle damage will occur.
  • Gauge line diameter less than specification; face contact only with minimal or no taper contact. Severe spindle damage can occur.
  • Gauge line diameter more than specification; taper contact only and no benefits of BIG-PLUS.
BIG Daishowa Seiki and its North American subsidiary, BIG KAISER, are manufacturers and distributors of original, licensed BIG-PLUS tooling. For a complete list of all licensed spindle and tool holder companies authorized for the production of BIG-PLUS, please contact us and remember: accept no substitutes.
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Jack Burley
Jack Burley is the vice president of sales and engineering at BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc., 2600 Huntington Boulevard, Hoffman Estates, IL 60192, 847-228-4011, Fax: 847-228-0881, jack.burley@us.bigkaiser.com, www.bigkaiser.com.

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KAISER Precision Tooling strengthens alliance with BIG Daishowa 

4/16/2015

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Rümlang, 15.04.2015
KAISER Precision Tooling strengthens alliance with BIG Daishowa 

Rümlang, Switzerland -- KAISER Precision Tooling Ltd has determined to strengthen its partnership with its long-term partner, BIG Daishowa Seiki Co Ltd of Japan, and agreed to become a company of the BIG Daishowa group as of April 15, 2015. 
KAISER Precision Tooling is the leading supplier of high-precision modular boring tools. The company was founded in 1948 by Heinz Kaiser and is owned by the families of the second generation. BIG Daishowa Seiki is one of the world’s leading producers of precision tool holders and measuring accessories. It operates six manufacturing facilities in Japan.

The two companies have had a close technology and distribution partnership since 1980. BIG Daishowa produces KAISER boring tools under a license agreement and sells under the brand BIG Kaiser in the Asian market. In June of 2003, BIG Daishowa expanded its strategic alliance to KAISER’s North American operations near Chicago, and that company was renamed BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc.

“During the past 10 years, our partnership has steadily increased through the creation of two joint ventures in the U.S. and Germany and an exclusive distribution arrangement for BIG products in Europe”, says KAISER CEO Peter Elmer. “Today the distribution channels are practically grown together and the combined products are an excellent portfolio.”
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Mr. Kitaguchi, Chairman of BIG Daishowa Seiki Co. Ltd. and Mr. Chris Kaiser, Chairman of KAISER Precision Tooling Ltd.
Executive management will remain in place following the transaction, with Peter Elmer as CEO leading European operations, and CEO Chris Kaiser overseeing North American operations. The original KAISER facility in Rümlang, Switzerland, will continue to have an integral role in the company’s worldwide R&D and manufacturing strategy. 

“Our family has been working for some time on a succession plan to ensure the continued growth and success of this company,” says Chris Kaiser. “With 35 years of successful collaboration with BIG Daishowa, we are confident KAISER is in the right hands for the future.” 

The strengthened alliance is expected to help the company balance manufacturing resources and market and currency fluctuations around the globe. Customers will benefit from a fully consolidated portfolio of tooling solutions and ancillary products. Following the alliance, BIG Daishowa will have approximately 900 employees. 
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