Rod mill equipment contract

Jianlong Beiman Special Steel Co Ltd, based in Qiqihar, China, has awarded SMS Group a contract to supply core equipment for a high-speed wire-rod mill. The centrepiece of the mill, which has an annual capacity of 500,000 tons, is a 10-stand wire rod finishing block. To comply with the metallurgical requirements of the finished products, the wire-rod mill has been designed for low-temperature rolling.

Saarstahl AG

In addition to the wire-rod finishing block, the scope of supply includes two cantilevered roughing stands, a group of shears upstream of the block, and a loop-laying head including pinch-roll unit. What’s more, SMS group is supplying the design for the LCC (loop cooling conveyor) with three-fan technology, as well as the coil-handling system. Commissioning will take place in spring 2019.
For further information www.sms-group.com

Five-axis machining centre halves cycle time

Hailsham-based subcontractor, Dicker Precision, has decided to move its prismatic machining capability forward with the purchase of its first five-axis, vertical machining centre (VMC). The German-built Spinner U620 Compact was supplied as a turnkey package with tooling, the initial part program and training by UK and Ireland agent, Whitehouse Machine Tools.

Deputy systems manager Brandon Love, son of the subcontractor’s second-generation managing director, Mark, explained the reason for buying the machine in January 2018, and why the firm opted for a model capable of interpolating four of the five CNC axes simultaneously, rather than all of them: “The investment was triggered about a year ago by one of our existing customers asking for nine variants of a pump housing to be machined from solid 316 stainless steel. Some features have tight tolerances, such as 30 µm on hole diameter and 20 µm on position.
“We started off machining them on a three-axis VMC using indexable-insert boring bars, high-speed steel rippers and various other tooling, including taps,” he continues. “It took four hours to complete each housing in five operations. Quite frankly, we were finding it difficult to make any profit on the contract.
“However, unlike the other stainless steel pump housings we manufacture for this customer, which are produced from castings that need to rest before operations to relieve internal stresses, the latest components are produced from billet, so we realised we could machine them in two operations.”
To make this a reality and improve the economy of production, either a five-axis VMC or a four-axis horizontal machining centre was needed, and both were considered. The vertical-spindle route was chosen due to the greater versatility that it offered for future contracts, as well as the smaller footprint for a given working volume. In this respect, the Spinner machine has a good ratio.
Luckily, the quantity of the new pump housings climbed during last year to between 20 and 40 per month, which justified the purchase of the new machine. Dicker Precision already had experience of working with Whitehouse Machine Tools, which had delivered an Italian-built Biglia twin-spindle CNC bar automatic lathe with two Y-axis turrets to streamline the production of a family of aluminium switch cover assemblies.
“Whitehouse provides a turnkey solution; they do everything for you, whereas some suppliers just deliver a machine and you’re lucky if they tell you how to turn it on and off,” says Love. “We looked at various options, but the positive experience with the Biglia lathe package prompted us to return to the same source for the five-axis machining centre.

“Whitehouse did a time study on the first part, wrote the program and advised that the job could be done twice as fast with solid carbide end mills rather than indexable-insert tooling – in two hours rather than four, including handling,” he adds.
“Feeds and speeds were optimised; they recommended that threads be milled rather than tapped to avoid the risk of tap breakage, machine downtime and scrapped components, and offered to set up the job and train us, which was important as it was our first five-axis machine.”
The U620 Compact was producing the pump housings within two days of arriving on the shop floor. Based on the machine’s hourly rate, halving the cycle time results in £200 being saved on the production of each component. Admittedly, £60 was spent on carbide inserts for each part, whereas the tooling cost is double using solid carbide, but nevertheless the reduction in manufacturing cost is considerable and will help to amortise the cost of the machine quickly.
It should be pointed out that the savings described are gained only from Op 1, on the top of the housing; a three-axis VMC being retained for the simpler, 15-minute Op 2 on the reverse.
Unsurprisingly, owing to the reduction in the number of operations, lead-time from start of production to delivery of a batch is down from one and a half weeks to three days, with two days the aim. Another big advantage is the repeatability of the process, which is largely down to the rigidity of the Spinner machine and the absence of tolerance build-up.
Greater precision has elicited a comment from the customer that the current components are of significantly better quality. All housings delivered were within tolerance before, but some might have been near the top or bottom limit, causing niggles during pump assembly. Now, dimensions are all close to the centre of the tolerance bands, making life easier for the customer.
As to the choice of a 4+1-axis version of the U620 Compact, where one of the rotational axes is positional, rather than capable of being interpolated with the other four, Love explains: “One factor was that the 4+1-axis machine costs around 15% less than the full five-axis version. In any case, we are currently using ours in 3+2-axis mode to manufacture the pump housings.
“That will soon change, however, as we are planning to introduce a two-minute chamfering routine into the Op 1 cycle, which will require simultaneous movement of four axes,” he continues. “It will eliminate hand deburring after machining, saving up to 10 minutes per part and the consequent labour cost, as well as avoiding the variability of manual processing. We also intend to introduce in-cycle chamfering during Op 2 on the three-axis machine.”

The latest pump housing contract occupies the Spinner for half of its time over a single day shift, so there is spare capacity. The next job is already lined up for the machine – an aluminium pneumatic block for the automotive industry that requires five-sided machining. Similar jobs have been done in the past by Dicker Precision but it has been difficult to hit the price asked. That will be no problem using the five-axis machine, according to Love.
He concludes: “More and more jobs these days have tighter tolerances and require a higher standard of surface finish. Machines like the Spinner help us to achieve those specifications. Moreover, the reduction in handling resulting from automatic part repositioning on the five-axis machine means that an operator can look after a three-axis machine as well, reducing costs further.”
For further information www.wmtcnc.com

Latest tooling lines from Mapal

Mapal will give a UK exhibition premiere to a complete range of new products (hall 17, stand 420).

For instance, the arrival of the CPR500/510 replaceable-head reamer will be a centrepiece of the hole-making series with its optimised cooling channels. These CVD-coated reamers are designed to extend tool life as the solid-carbide replaceable heads introduce a new coating technology that has been especially developed for machining castings.
Available in diameters from 8 to 40 mm, a major development of the CPR500/510 is its cooling sleeve. The issue of cooling is critical when machining castings due to the abrasiveness of the material, which is now resolved through the internal coolant supply and outlets that direct fluid at the cutting edges. Also on show will be a complete programme of ISO indexable inserts for boring steel, stainless steel and heat-resistant cast steel.
For further information www.mapal.com

Master Abrasives installs first Micromatic

Master Abrasives has sold and installed its first Micromatic grinding machine in the UK, the ECO-200 universal model, at Coventry-based Earlsdon Technology, a builder of special-purpose machine tools for industries such as aerospace and automotive.

Brian Little, toolroom supervisor at Earlsdon, recognised the importance of choosing a cost-effective machine, with the necessary precision and versatility to meet the company’s wide-ranging requirements. “The machine was purchased on the basis that it will, in the long term, provide cost savings in producing customised tooling for the bespoke requirements of our customers and reduce the risk of causing delays in machine manufacture and approval.
“Currently we send this work out to subcontract and cannot rely on a speedy reaction time or the geometrical accuracy required,” he continues. “The ECO-200 will provide an in-house service which can be easily controlled to suit the demands and timeframe of our own machine production, meeting the accuracies required.”
Earlsdon’s new machine has a 400 mm grinding capacity between centres and an additional internal grinding spindle. The nitride-hardened steel spindle on the wheel head runs in multi-point hydrodynamic bearings, which Master Abrasives says gives high rigidity and excellent damping.
Martin Stevens, applications engineer at Master Abrasives, adds: “We encourage those who are interested to get in touch and arrange a visit to our grinding and finishing showroom. We can show Micromatic grinding machines in action, as well as other products, such as our demonstration tape finisher, measuring equipment and abrasives.”
For further information www.master-abrasives.co.uk

Largest profile surface grinder from GER

International Manufacturing Solutions Ltd (IMSL), the UK agent for GER, has announced the launch of the GER SR 400-100 CNC plane and profile surface grinder. Although the 4 m grinder is currently the largest profile surface grinder manufactured by GER, if required, the company is able to produce machines with capacities of up to 6 m.

The 4000 x 1000 mm capacity machine was initially developed for an Austrian manufacturer of press tools, and is equipped with a 500 mm diameter x 100 mm wide wheel head incorporating a 30 kW spindle motor and three independent rotary diamond dressers. All slideways incorporate precision ball screws, Fanuc drive motors and Heidenhain linear scales. Control is via Fanuc 0i-TD.
GER’s SR 400-100 has a vertical distance (table to wheel spindle centre) of 1000 mm and a maximum component weight capacity of 4300 kg. Perlite cast iron is used for all of the machine’s major castings, which are ribbed and feature box-section construction.
The machine’s X-axis table guideways are mounted directly to the front section of the bed, enabling the table to accept much heavier loads while still achieving smooth movement at high speeds, says GER; a design principle that also applies to the machine’s Z-axis column guideways.
A motor assembly mounted inside a heavy cast casing within the column structure is a feature of the machine’s wheel head. This heavy-duty assembly balances the generated masses and, as it is mounted at the rear of the guideways, limits wheel head overhang to avoid deflections under demanding grinding conditions.
For further information www.imsl.eu