£3m contract boost at Alucast

Delivering complex components for new automotive ‘light-weighting’ projects is reaping dividends for a Black Country supplier.

Alucast, which is one of the UK’s largest independent aluminium foundries, has secured over £3m of new contracts from carmakers keen to explore ways of reducing weight on future models.
Backed by support from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Black Country LEP and the Black Country Growth Deal, Alucast has opened additional facilities adjacent to its Wednesbury headquarters to cope with the expansion, giving the company an additional 7000 sq ft of dedicated machining space. In addition, management recently signed off the £400,000 acquisition of three five-axis CNC machines from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG), which will help Alucast supply final machined parts to customers.
For further information www.alucast.co.uk

Rimex opts for Timesavers hairline system

The latest addition to the machinery portfolio at Enfield-based Rimex – a specialist in the production of metal sheet finishes – particularly polished, embossed and coloured stainless steel sheet products, is a bespoke Timesavers 72 Series 1600-HL ‘hairline’ finishing system from Ellesco.

“Although many of our European customers prefer a satin finish on sheet for internal architectural features, ‘hairline’ is extremely popular in the Asian market,” says Nick Barnes, sales director at Rimex. “We have been able to supply hairline product in the past, but it wasn’t straightforward and we had to modify/reset existing machines, which added time and cost. Our investment in a bespoke machine from Ellesco and Timesavers to achieve that finish has streamlined the whole process.”
In order to deliver a hairline finish on the 72 Series 1600-HL, the abrasive belt moves at a slow speed, around 0.6-2 mm/min, while the material passes beneath. The effect is to create a continuous ‘scratch effect’ from one end of the sheet to the other, a finish that is seen as more aesthetically pleasing for internal architectural features such as elevator doors and internal walls.
Production director at Rimex, Richard Watson, says: “We are now focusing on creating a standard hairline finish, using a grit size that gives a softer look to the surface that meets all the standards for external cladding, where the roughness tolerance has to be less than 0.5 Ra.”
For further information www.ellesco.co.uk

Walter trains Olympus apprentices

Apprentices at Olympus Engineering have gained unprecedented levels of tooling competence to boost their learning and careers at the Stoke-based company after Walter GB offered free training and awareness in tooling and production technologies.

By transferring some of its ‘Engineering Kompetenz’ skills to the eight apprentices, “Walter’s in-depth tooling expertise has given a massive boost to the youngsters’ production engineering knowledge base”, says Olympus Engineering’s quality and technical manager Will Mitchell.
The apprentices and Walter GB spent 30 minutes a week over a three-month period covering subjects such as manufacturing economics, the fundamentals of metal cutting and cutting-tool applications, as well as discussing a production environment case study. Walter has been supplying the 157-employee, £16m turnover business with a range of tooling for some time. Indeed, for the past 12 years, Walter has been the company’s main tooling integrator, an arrangement that has included the provision of onsite tooling vending machines.
For further information www.walter-tools.com

Mazak helps secure 5G award

The team at Yamazaki Mazak is celebrating after helping the Worcestershire 5G Consortium win ‘Most Commercially Viable Use Case’ at the inaugural 5G Realised Use Case Awards.

Led by Worcestershire County Council and the Worcestershire Local Economic Partnership (LEP), the consortium received the award at the recent 5G Realised Event in London. Mazak was chosen as part of the consortium thanks to its pioneering work implementing Industry 4.0 design principles into its array of machine tools and CNC technology.
Mazak trialled an augmented reality (AR) app designed to provide field service engineers with remote support. The AR app helps engineers to measure end-to-end speed and latency, and gain an insight into the future potential of 5G for industry. Tim Gane, business systems director at Yamazaki Mazak UK, says: “5G represents a tremendous opportunity to further accelerate productivity growth, and enable even quicker data transfer and analysis for manufacturers. With potential speeds of up to 10 Gb per second, 5G will be the industry standard for connectivity in the future.”
For further information www.mazakeu.co.uk

Seco sets date for ‘Inspiration through Innovation’

The annual ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ best-practice manufacturing event hosted by Seco Tools will take place on 9-10 October at the company’s technology centre in Alcester.

This year, the event will be focused exclusively on the aerospace segment. Some 30 technical partners will be taking part in eight aerospace machining demonstrations. Specific components being machined will include blisks, discs, landing gear parts, structural rib components and seating parts. The event is free to attend, and doors open on both days at 09:00, closing at 19:00 on the 9 October and 16:00 on 10 October.
For further information www.secotools.com/iti