Emuge celebrates 100 years of toolmaking

Emuge-Franken, a manufacturer of taps, thread mills, drills, end mills, and other rotary cutting tools, celebrates its centennial. In 1920, Richard Glimpel, a German engineer and master craftsman, founded a company and invented a single-finishing tap with a spiral point that changed the machining of internal threads. The tap obsoleted the 3-part tap set with only one tool that did the job in a fraction of the time it normally took. The tool was so successful it helped secure a large order and growth for the fledgling company that Richard and three employees had started. In turn, partners were soon added and the brand name Emuge was established. 100 years later, Emuge-Franken has more than 1,900 employees with locations worldwide.

Many successful Emuge tool innovations and product expansions have followed, including the addition of tool holders in 1928, special workpiece clamping in 1950, and in 1953, the development of the steep spiral-fluted tap, a tool that to this day features the same geometry for machining threads in blind holes throughout the industry. In 1956, Helmut Glimpel, son of the founder and current owner, joined the company, and in 1958 EMUGE acquired Franken, a manufacturer of milling tools, and changed its name to Emuge-Franken.

With the newly established Emuge-Franken, Helmut Glimpel focused being a full tool system provider and on establishing new sales and production facilities to closely serve customers throughout the world, beginning with the U.S. In 1983 Massachusetts-based Emuge Corp. was founded, and today resides in a newly expanded 50,000ft² state-of-the-art facility in West Boylston, Massachusetts with a Technology and Training Center, tool reconditioning, and manufacturing. The facility provides additional capacity to domestically manufacture special solid carbide tooling and other standard solutions within the Emuge-Franken milling tools portfolio.

From the original spiral point tap to unique tool holder developments such as SoftSynchro, InnoForm thread forming tools with advanced geometry, and Circle-Segment end mills that have quadrupled material removal rates, Emuge continues innovating tools via extensive research & development. Recently, Emuge-Franken developed a new tool category and threading technology with the introduction of the Punch Tap, which produces and threads a hole in one fast operation, at a fraction of the time it takes to conventionally drill and then tap, a hole.

Emuge-Franken is fully committed to innovation and continued expansion. Construction is now underway to build a new 215,000ft² production facility opposite the current Emuge-Franken global headquarters in Lauf, Germany. The facility is slated to be fully operational by 2023.