This year’s Ligna woodworking exhibition in Hanover will have a special significance for German company Lach Diamant. Exactly 30 years ago, at Ligna 1979, the company became the first to show cutting tools manufactured with polycrystalline synthetic diamond (PCD) for milling, sawing and drilling for the woodworking and plastic industry.

This caused quite a sensation and quickly came to the attention of manufacturers of carbide tools, because the PCD tools showed a service life (run time) on the machine of approximately 250 to 300 times longer than carbide tools.

Based on Lach’s discovery of the spark erosion process for PCD (originally Europe Patent No. 0010276), the diamond tool started its triumphant advance around the world. These tools, with their much longer service life were successfully applied in the wood, furniture and plastic industry.

With extensive experience in both diamond processing and specialist machine building technology, Lach has continued producing diamond tools and the machines needed to fabricate them, its latest being the Dia-2100-mini. Today Lach supplies a wide range of diamond tools for the aerospace and automotive industries, which are committed to future lightweight design with glass fiber or carbon fiber reinforced materials (GRP and CFRP).

 

Even if machine investments are put on the back burner, good tools are always needed, because nothing can be made without them. In these current difficult times, more than ever, incoming orders have to be executed promptly - "just in time".

And PCD tools have not reached the end of their development, as has been recognised for some time at Lach. For this reason Lach has chosen the diamond tool as the focal point for its display at Ligna 2009 (Hall 26, Booth D35)