Promax Tool Company was born in in 1967 with three employees. Back then it was called California Tool Grinding, a local job shop that focused on resharpening, tool modification and some mill and lathe work. In 1984 Daryl Van Dyke and his wife, Eleanor, bought the company. The company continued to grow, but then the aerospace industry took a major nose dive, and Van Dyke knew that, if the company was to survive, he had to do something. That something turned out to be the introduction of Promax, a unique line of premium solid carbide roughing endmills. The Promax tool line took off, and the company continued to grow. In 1992 California Tool Grinding became Promax Tool Company. Today the company employs more than 50 people, occupies a 22,000 sq ft building (soon to be 36,000 sq ft) and offers a line of more than 8,000 all-carbide cutting tools.

In keeping with our goal of providing our readers with profiles of potential resources, we recently visited Promax for an interview with Daryl Van Dyke. The results of that interview are presented here for your review.

                                                                                              C.H. Bush, editor

CNC West: Daryl, thanks for taking the time to tell us about Promax Tool Company.

Van Dyke: My pleasure.

CNC West: I was just wondering. With more than 8,000 products in your line up, how in the world do you keep them all straight? That must be a logistical nightmare.

Van Dyke: Well, not really. After 40 years in the business we have things pretty well under control. Our manufacturing and quality-control systems are automated, our grinding programs are automated, and right now we’re in the process of automating our inventory system, too. Everything we do is aimed at giving our customers the highest quality tools and fastest service possible.

CNC West: I see. Well, I’m really interested in learning about your automated manufacturing system, but first I think our readers would like to know about your products and services. What is it you do for a living?

Promax products and Services

Van Dyke: (smiling) Well, the canned answer is that our company mission is to manufacture and distribute premium performance carbide cutting tool products that satisfy customer requirements and expectations 100% of the time, and that’s what we try to do. In fact, I believe that what’s all cutting tool manufacturers try to do.

CNC West: So, you only make carbide cutting tools?

Van Dyke: Right. About 75% of our business comes from our standard product lines. The rest is custom tooling. Our standard Promax end mills are manufactured from high strength, ultra-fine and submicron grain carbide with a very high cobalt content. That produces an extra tough end mill which has a transverse rupture strength as high as 650,000 psi. All of our end mills are eccentric relieved.

CNC West: I’m not sure I understand about the eccentric relief you mentioned. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

Van Dyke: Sure. The eccentric relief does a couple of things. It runs smoother. It runs cooler. And it has about a 20-25% stronger cutting edge. That means our tools can be pushed harder than others. With our advanced Promax end mill design, users can expect productivity increases 2 to 5 times over conventional carbide end mills.

CNC West: Most cutting tool companies talk a lot about the coatings they use. What about Promax?

Van Dyke: Well, we use coatings, too, of course. We offer TiCN, AlTiN, ZrN and laser hard coatings, which increases tool life while enhancing chip flow and lubrication through the cut.

CNC West: I think I have it now. Still, with that many products you must have them divided up into different categories, different product lines.

Standard Products

Van Dyke: Of course, Chuck. In addition to our custom produced tools, we have five full lines of standard cutting tools. We have the Pro-4 line, which combines the best elements of our Series 111 Finishing End Mill and the Series 120 Rougher-Finisher. We’ve applied for a patent on this design. We have a line of roughers, a line of end mills, a line of rougher-finishers, which delivers the ability to hog out material and still give a decent finish suitable for a lot of applications. Finally, we have quite a few special-use tools like corner rounding and taper die and mold tools.

The Promax Difference

CNC West: I have to ask this. What, if anything, sets the Promax line apart from any other tooling line.

Van Dyke: Now that’s a good question Chuck. All cutting tool manufacturers use the same basic design for their tools. There might be some variations in helix angles, you know, which is the spiral, and there might be some variations in relief angles, but in the end, the designs are all similar. What sets us apart is the materials we use and the quality of our manufacturing procedures.

CNC West: Well, carbide is carbide, isn’t it?

Van Dyke: Not really. All materials are not alike. As I mentioned earlier, our standard Promax end mills are manufactured from high-strength, ultra-fine and submicron grain carbide with a very high cobalt content. That makes them very tough and durable. The way we look at it is this. If a customer buys a tool from us today and gets a hundred parts out of it, then they should get a hundred parts out of the next tool they buy, too. That’s really the bottom line. Consistent high performance.

CNC West: So that’s why you have automated your operations? To achieve that consistency?

Automated Manufacturing

Van Dyke: Right. Uniformity and consistency in the product is achieved through uniformity and consistency in the materials and the manufacturing techniques you use. We use the Walter tool and cutter grinder system. It’s a complete manufacturing system, with design and machine programming software, which can be used offline, automated palletized loading, which uses pick and place units to feed tooling stock into the grinders. There’s also a tool checking system that uses the same data as the grinders to test the quality of the tools produced. Another good thing for custom tools is that once we design a tool for a customer, we can run it through the Walter software and do what you might call cybergrinding. You can see the end product before you ever touch metal. That’s very useful.

CNC West: Sounds like it. What turned you on to the Walter grinders?

Van Dyke: Basically, I inherited a Walter Heliotronic 50 grinder when I first bought the business. It was a good machine, and since then they have continued to improve their product. Personally, I think they’re the best grinder on the market. We deal with Kreager Machine in the bay area ,and they give us good service. Anyway, that’s why we stuck with Walter over the years.

Automated Inventory

CNC West: You also mentioned that you’re automating your inventory system. Tell me about that.

Van Dyke: There’s not much to tell. We maintain a huge inventory, which is costly, of course, but our main goal is to respond to orders as quickly as possible. Right now we have a manual inventory system, but we’re in the process of putting in an automatic system. We have four or five people in shipping, and they’re really working too hard. With the new system, they’ll just punch in a product number and the system will bring it to them. No more reaching and bending. I spend a lot of time hunting out and eliminating bottlenecks from our systems. The goal is better and faster service for our customers.

Product Availability

CNC West: So, how can a shop buy your products? Do they have to call you directly?

Van Dyke: No, we have distribution and sales representatives all over the country, and we’re very well served in the west. Of course, if a customer can’t reach a representative, they can always call us directly. As you know we’re located in Rancho Cordova. They also can check our website for product information.

CNC West: Daryl, it looks like I’ve run out of space again. Thanks for all the good input. Best of luck to you.

Van Dyke: Thanks, Chuck. It was fun.

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