Architectural ironmongery manufacturer Instinct Hardware has spent more than £500,000 in the past two years on a manufacturing execution system, a powder coating plant, a waterjet cutter and an Italian-built Biglia bar-fed, twin-spindle lathe with a ±45 mm Yaxis and 15 driven tools.It is the sixth CNC lathe and by far the most capable to arrive at the 68,000 sq ft factory in Stirchley, Birmingham.

The latest turning centre was sourced from Biglia’s sole UK agent Whitehouse Machine Tools. Whitehouse supplied the machine as a turnkey package with Hydrafeed short bar magazine for feeding 1.5-m long stock up to 80 mm in diameter, and a gantry-type system for unloading components onto a conveyor.

“We bought the turning centre specifically because it’s able to broach a square hole into our stainless steel handles, which Whitehouse demonstrated to us before we committed to the machine,” says director Nil Chohan.“We can now perform all operations in one hit, rather than in five or six operations using our previous production route.”

A case in point is the machining of a component assembled into a stainless steel, oval-profile, mitred lever handle. It previously required six machining operations, consuming a total of 15 minutes machining time plus 10 minutes or more handling and setup for each of the five additional operations – amounting to more than one hour overall. On the Biglia, the part comes off complete in 8.5 minutes, representing an eight-fold time saving, with the added benefit of eliminating work-in-progress and the potential for component damage.

More information www.wmtcnc.com