Episode 05

For Crafting Creation

Giving form to that inspiration and that obsession.
An end mill story about being a companion to creators.

Car headlights with higher radiance.

Headlights used to mostly be round or square-shaped. Hasn’t the variety of designs gotten much richer in recent years? For example, sedans with narrow lenses bordered by eyebrow-like lines shining with light. Or sports cars with lights cut vertically and boldly along the front fenders. Some headlights are so miniaturized and unified within the car bodies, we have trouble finding the source of the light. Then there are front faces that make people stare without even thinking. Competing car manufacturers go to great lengths to distinguish their headlight designs from rival designs as a way of expressing their brand identity and showing off their power to innovate.
The foremost role of the headlight is to illuminate the road in front and make the vehicle’s presence known to pedestrians and other vehicles. LEDs boost the basic capability of “brightness” while expanding the freedom of design. An LED produces the necessary luminous flux from a small light-emitting surface. The light from this source is directed into a transparent material known as a “light guide,” which reflects, diffuses, and emits it. Designers produce innovative, forefront designs by fashioning this light guide into unique forms.

Materializing creators’ passions as a partner.

Let’s suppose that a designer conceives of a light with a letter ‘A’ motif. To emit light from the LED with no leaks in this shape, the manufacture must use a cutting tool end mill to precisely etch the dots and V-shaped microtrench patterns into the light guide’s mold. However, the production of these special molds requires surfaces too large for a single end mill to machine. The solution for the manufacturer is to make multiple molds and connect them together. As a result, this solution is imperfect, as the final product may diverge from the designer’s original concept due seams in various places or other features resulting from the multiple-mold configuration. Through repeated trial and error, NS TOOL has managed to dramatically improve the durability and cutting precision of end mills, enabling the production of molds with complex shapes.
Our tools are chosen as companions materializing the products of creators not just in the automotive sector, but in genres of many other types. For example, some of the perfume glasses and lipstick cases our tools are now producing, are gaining renown as artworks in their own right for their beautifully finished surfaces. “I want to make unseen ideas a reality”; “I want to make people’s lives better by fusing function and beauty”… NS TOOL continues to hone the cutting edges of end mills to answer the creator’s passion for creation and her limitless obsession with detail without compromise.

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