Tony Bess, director of subcontract machinists Plalite Ltd in Sittingbourne, has in the past three years invested £3m in capital equipment.

Included in the purchases were two Japanese-built Speedio M140X2 30-taper mill-turn centres from Brother, supplied by sole UK agent, Whitehouse Machine Tools. The first of the five-axis machines was installed in mid-2017 and proved so successful that a second was added six months later.
Plalite undertakes a lot of work requiring both milling and turning, so the multi-tasking capability of the M140X2s was attractive, as was their compact footprint on the shop floor.
“On the Brother machines, the number of operations needed to produce a part is minimised, there are no concentricity issues, blending is perfect and the tolerances we are able to hold allows us to quote very accurate work,” says Bess.
Short set-up times using milling cutter back ends and the adoption of Lang zero-point quick-change chucks help to maintain profitability by allowing the machines to be changed over quickly, which is especially important when producing components in small batches.
Responding to why he bought machining centres with turning capability – rather than bar automatics having live tooling – for the one-hit production of what are often predominantly rotational parts, Bess says: “With a turn-mill machine you get low milling capacity and a limited number of tools – compared with the 22 stations in the Brother turret – added to which, driven tool heads on lathes lack rigidity, which tends to cause vibration.
“With a mill-turn machine you get quick, very productive prismatic machining capability, and all the tools are in taper holders, which are much more rigid, particularly with simultaneous face contact,” he adds.
For further information www.wmtcnc.com

Heller Machine Tools has supplied a large, heavy-duty machine to GKN Aerospace Filton, near Bristol, to rough titanium aircraft components. The machine was installed on budget and ahead of schedule, and has started producing a family of five structural components from titanium forgings, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Six years ago, there was a possibility of the Integrated Machining Facility at Filton also being contracted to finish-machine the components. This work has not materialised, but it meant that a large, five-axis machining centre (from a different supplier) had to be installed at the outset so that both roughing and finishing operations could be completed.
During 2017, the customer doubled the lot sizes to be manufactured, mirroring a similar increase in 2016. A second machining centre was therefore needed to cope with demand, but as the contract remains for roughing only, leaving a 3 mm stock allowance ± 0.127 mm over the entire surface of each part, a more cost effective four-axis CNC machine was deemed sufficient for the task.
Six potential HMC suppliers were considered, half of which were shortlisted. John Hendry, project improvement engineer, and Mike Davis, engineering group leader, opted for a Heller H 1600 with a high-torque spindle. Additionally, despite the machine’s size and rigidity, its installed weight at less than 50 tonnes allowed it to be positioned in the Filton facility (where there is a solid 300 mm thick floor) without the need for any special foundations.
“The Heller machine was the best value solution for us at the quality end of the market,” states Hendry.
For further information www.heller.biz