Radius HDD, Weatherford, TX, Owner & President, Riff Wright, founded the company over 15 years ago as a specialty tool design supplier to the rock & earth drilling industry.

Today, Radius HDD offers a multitude of tools and drilling products for the HDD industry (Horizontal Directional Drilling) from:

  • Standard products like bits, blades, housings & swivels, cutters and rock drilling bits, reamers and hole openers
  • New design creative products designed from scratch to meet specific customer needs
  • Repair of existing drilling tools like pilot tools, hole openers and reamers, including evaluation & inspection and replacing failed or
  • damaged cones, rebuilding worn areas, hard-facing application, replacing cutting teeth, and thread repair.

Throughout the company’s lifetime, Mr. Wright has lead Radius HDD on the leading edge of innovated products, processes, and methods. Radius takes pride in its innovative new products and its amazing capability to repair many tools, saving tens of thousands of dollars for their customers, rather than placing the worn or damaged drilling tool with a new one. Their unique approach of consistently working with the actual drillers in the field, and the contractors doing the job, has enabled them to be closer to the industry, people, processes and new challenges facing the actual field technicians. This same philosophy has lead them to purchase their new AKS accu-kut plasma cutting table.

Mike Burns, AKS Director of Sales & Marketing with Riff Right owner and President of Radius HD with AKS accu-kut 8×24 and robo-kut 5-axis bevel head

AKS accu-kut 8’x24’ plasma table with the AKS “robo-kut” 5-axis bevel head

Hypertherm Hy-Performance Hy-Definition HPR400XD Plasma Power Supply Unit

In 2018, Radius HDD installed an AKS Cutting Systems “accu-kut” 8’x24’ with robo-kut 5-axis bevel head for cutting weld prep cuts and precision small hole cuts in carbon steel and stainless steel plate up to 2” thick. The AKS accu-kut is powered by the Hypertherm HPR400XD for the heaviest plasma cutting applications on the market. Their accu-kut machine also has a unique front open area, with no table, that allows Radius HDD to place and locate large domes, or heads, specifically for their reamer products, and plasma cut out small holes, slots and openings to mount the cutting teeth, and digging tools to the head. These heads are 24” to 50” inch diameters and up to 12” deep, usually made from 3/8” to ¾” thick steel material. By designing a smaller self-contained table, with specially designed air flow capability to insure the integrity of the down draft smoke removal, Radius HDD has mastered the art of cutting their heads repeatably, accurately and easily. What previously took them 4-6 hours manually by hand, to cut all the holes and slots on one head, now takes under ten minutes to load the head, cut, and unload the same head. Not only is their production time drastically shortened, but the accuracy and quality of the head product is consistent and perfect.

Hypertherm EdgeConnect CNC controller with Hypertherm ProNest 2019 software

36” OD flange cut on the AKS accu-kut plasma cutting table

Radius HDD operator unloading plasma cut 36” OD flange off of the AKS accu-kut plasma cutting table

Another innovative add-on to their AKS accu-kut is the cleaning method of their table. The AKS accu-kut comes standard with side cleanout doors on the side bottom of each machine. Their 24ft machine has 6 side doors on each side. Customers who cut relatively thin (<1”) steel plates, usually have no trouble raking or sweeping out the table from each side and raking into a portable rolling pan. However, because Radius HDD often cuts very thick plate, up to 2”, their cut-outs, scrap and waste, is very large and heavy. Raking or sweeping out the pieces, cut-outs and scrap became an arduous task. So, Riff and his team developed a removal pan system which consists of a fabricated waste pan that sits on the bottom of the table. This pan has fork truck tine pockets for easy removal and replace. The pan also has a unique dumping method that allows the fork truck driver to simply raise the pan over the dumpster, push the pan into a specially designed dumpster lever, and it mechanically tilts on a hinge and dumps the scrap and debris from the pan into the dumpster, not requiring the fork truck drive to even get out of his seat!

Radius HDD is a superior and innovative design company which excels at specialty design of field rock & earth drilling tools. But they also excel at manufacturing and operations, including fabricating and machining. Their quality is first class and their people are exceptional. For more information, visit radiushdd.com, or akscutting.com. Or call AKS Cutting Systems at 1-800-962-7803.