Record year for Northern Industrial

Blackburn-based Northern Industrial has reported its best financial year ever, with turnover 20% up on the previous 12 months. The company experienced a slight dip when Covid-19 hit, but has rallied due, it believes, to good infrastructure, a shift towards the Americas supported by new operations in Mexico, the launch of a major new service line in SparesVault and growth-focused campaigns such as ‘Sell to Us’. Exporting industrial spare parts and repair services to 146 countries from its Blackburn facilities, Northern Industrial holds around £10m in stock covering over 200,000 part numbers sourced from over 1350 manufacturers.

For further information https://nicontrols.com/uk

Mills for difficult-to-machine materials

Dormer Pramet has launched a new generation of solid-carbide five-flute end mills, specifically for dynamic milling in general machining and mould and die applications. The company’s S7 assortment covers a wide range of operations in a variety of steels, cast irons and difficult-to-machine materials, including stainless steels and super alloys.

These latest additions – S770HB, S771HB, S772HB and S773HB – offer up to 25% more feed rate potential compared with four-flute cutters. All feature a positive rake angle for smooth cutting action and to reduce the risk of work-hardening. An AlCrN coating provides thermal stability, reduced friction, high wear resistance and prolonged durability.

The S771HB and S773HB cutters are suitable for narrow pocketing, trochoidal slotting and profiling applications. These end mills include a chip divider to break swarf into manageable smaller pieces, helping to reduce spindle load and increase metal removal rates. This capability provides a 50% larger width of cut in comparison to tools without a chip divider.

Dormer Pramet’s S770HB and S772HB are more suitable for profiling, trochoidal slotting, and semi-finishing applications, offering maximum productivity due to optimal metal removal rate and reduced machining time.

Meanwhile, Dormer Pramet has added three multi-application high-performance cutters to its S7 range for use on both CNC and conventional machine tools. The new additions – S722HB, S765HB and S768 – support most common operations, such as slotting, plunging, contour milling, ramping and copy milling in various materials.

Finally, the company has added a new solid-carbide cutter to enhance its assortment of end mills for hardened steel above 49 HRc. The S561 is specifically for high-performance milling in a variety of applications, including mould and die machining.

For further information
www.dormerpramet.com

£3m for machinery research programmes

The University of Huddersfield’s Centre for Precision Technologies will be receiving £3m of funding over the next five years to lead major research programmes designed to drive advancements in machinery design and performance. The news follows the Government’s recent announcement that over £100m of new investment through its Strength in Places Fund will support five new regional programmes. One of these is the West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester based Advanced Machinery and Productivity Initiative, known as AMPI, which consists of 10 partners, including the Centre for Precision Technologies.

For further information https://is.gd/vobube

Tools for machining OCTG products

Tooling manufacturer Paul Horn is expanding the range of products it supplies to manufacturers of equipment for machining pipes and sleeves used in oil and gas production, as well as to end users. The cost-effective OCTG (oil country tubular goods) machining solutions for use in API- and GOST-compliant – as well as premium joint applications – focus on ease of use. According to Horn, standard and customer-specific tools deliver a productive edge over other tools in the areas of handling, service life and cost per threaded connection.

The tool systems are available with standard machine interfaces including VDI, polygonal shank and round shank holders, and as solutions that are flange-mounted on turrets. They are adapted to suit the production process, from manual loading through to full automation. Both the screw clamp and ground geometries of Horn’s S117 and 315 systems, together with carefully matched tool holders, enable effective chip management.

There are no expensive parts such as chip breakers or shims to install, allowing customers to make savings when procuring tools. The two systems use substrates and coatings for the inserts that are tailored to the machining conditions, resulting in significant improvements in both cutting performance and tool life. Accurate interchangeability provided by the precision insert seats reduces the number of tool adjustments needed after changing inserts.

During thread cutting in API- and GOST-compliant applications, the S117’s numerous teeth enable the number of cuts to be minimised. The 315 system has three usable cutting edges, leading to cost optimisation. Horn says it is a good choice for premium joints that permit no more than one to three teeth per cutting edge.

For further information
www.phorn.co.uk

Game-changing manufacturing solutions

A research project driven by the NBT Group, Northumbria University and Senseye has been awarded over a quarter of a million pounds to evaluate new and emerging ‘smart’ technologies, helping to digitalise and transform manufacturing supply chains. This award is part of £18m of funding grants from the Digital Supply Chain competition, which forms part of UKRI’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) Made Smarter innovation challenge. The Digital Supply Chain competition supports the development of innovations designed to help supply chains become more productive and sustainable.

For further information
www.northumbria.ac.uk/business