Ingersoll 3D-prints a 22-ft. tool for making helicopter blades in 75 hours

Ingersoll 3D-printed and machined a 22-ft. ABS trim tool for making helicopter blades on its PrintMaster hybrid machine. Images: Ingersoll

Bell Textron Inc. and Ingersoll Machine Tools Inc. partnered to additively manufacture a 22-ft.-long vacuum trim tool used to make rotor blades for helicopters. The tool was produced at Ingersoll’s Rockford, Ill., facility on the company’s large-format MasterPrint, a gantry-style hybrid machine that combines 3D printing and 5-axis milling.

The tool was printed from 1,150 lbs. of ABS material with 20% chopped carbon fiber fill. The printing phase of the procedure took 75 hours. Upon completion of the additive phase, the print head was replaced by the MasterPrint’s milling head, which finish-machined the tool.

A Siemens 840D CNC controls both machining and 3D printing operations. The additive and subtractive manufacturing processes were co-engineered in the native CAD software format.

“We are continuously testing and advancing MasterPrint in our Development Center,” said Ingersoll CEO Chip Storie. He added that one of the company’s goals is to 3D-print molds for aerospace that “preserve the geometrical properties and tolerances, vacuum integrity, and autoclave resilience normally obtained with traditional technology [while retaining] the cost and time reduction only additive manufacturing can offer.”

It took 75 hours to print the 22-ft. tool.