Senior appointment at Eclipse

Dave Smith has been appointed as senior sales manager at Eclipse Magnetics.

Smith’s responsibilities will include supporting the internal and external sales teams, and building new and supporting existing distributor channels and partners across all product groups, both in the UK and export markets. His role at Eclipse Magnetics will mean involvement across the industrial, catalogue, foreign-body removal and filtration areas of the business. Smith has over 20 years of sales experience both in the UK and overseas.
For further information www.eclipsemagnetics.com

Continuous improvement at Ferrositi

Mills CNC has supplied Cheltenham-based Ferrositi Ltd, a precision subcontract specialist, with a Doosan SMX 2600S turn-mill machine featuring a 13” quick-change chuck.

The machine was installed at Ferrositi’s facility in May 2020: a time when many companies were battening down the hatches due to COVID-19.
Making this investment during the height of the pandemic outbreak is typical of Ferrositi, as the company’s managing director Nick Furno points out: “Ever since the company was created in 2012 we have invested in multi-axis machine tools as a route to improving our productivity, operational efficiencies and competitiveness. We are always on the lookout to increase and strengthen our front-line machining resources.”
Despite the lockdown, such an opportunity arose in April 2020 and resulted in Ferrositi making its first investment in Doosan machine-tool technology and – coincidentally – its first turn-mill machine acquisition.
“Both Doosan and Mills CNC have good reputations in the market and, when I was informed that a turn-mill machine was viable immediately from Mills CNC’s stock at a competitive price, I was interested,” says Furno.
Having seen the SMX 2600S at Mills CNC’s Technology Campus facility in Leamington, the decision to purchase the machine was made.
“Already we can see, and appreciate, that the machine is powerful, fast, flexible and accurate,” says Furno. “We’re particularly impressed with its rigidity, ergonomic design and thermal stability. Using a single set-up, the SMX is capable of performing multi-machining processes. As a consequence, we can reduce production bottlenecks and limit stop-start operations.
“The SMX will help us consolidate and grow our position in existing supply chains and sectors, as well as helping to spearhead our move into new sectors and industries, such as the food processing and medical sectors.”
For further information www.millscnc.co.uk

CNC lathes feature mono-block beds

Romi C series heavy-duty flat-bed CNC lathes are built with Romi-made mono-block cast-iron beds to enhance rigidity, accuracy and performance.

The C series includes nine models ranging from the C1100H with a 720 mm swing over cross slide and 53 kW main motor, to the C2600H with a 2030 mm swing over cross slide and 115 kW main motor. All key components of Romi machine tools are designed and built in-house for complete control and assurance of manufacturing quality.
The line of heavy-duty CNC lathes from Romi features net weights ranging from approximately 18,000 to 61,000 kg, maximum weight between centres from 15,000 to 50,000 kg, and maximum torque from 12,429 to 44,200 Nm.
Romi’s robust mono-block bed is made of grey cast iron and is said to exhibit extreme rigidity. In addition, the cast-iron headstock (also manufactured by Romi) features a spindle with Timken bearings.
C series heavy-duty CNC lathes are powered by a high torque, continuously variable speed AC motor. The manually driven quill has a built-in live centre with precision bearings.
All models are built to reduce machine vibration and allow fast and accurate machining at full power. C series lathes are suitable for heavy applications in the mining, aerospace, steel mill, and oil and gas industries.
For further information www.romiuk.com

Face visor donation

The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) has manufactured 10,000 certified face visors and donated them to charities and companies across Scotland.

In May, the NMIS team imported material from Sweden and got to work producing prototype visors with the help of Ayrshire-based social enterprise Tsukure Hub. For the manufacturing process, Tsukure laser-cut a 2000 sq m roll of A-PET plastic before a team of engineering technicians at the AFRC, a specialist technology centre within the NMIS Group, used the cut material to assemble and package the visors.
For further information www.nmis.scot

Cycle-time savings on aerospace parts

If a manufacturer plans to carry out rigorous turning of demanding materials, such as titanium and nickel alloys, care has to be taken to select rigid, powerful lathes.

This factor is especially the case if the intended applications require sliding-head turn-milling, as these platforms tend to be less robust than fixed-head lathes. With this in mind, Lanark-based aerospace manufacturer Martin Aerospace, selected a German-built Traub TNL32-9P for its latest investment in sliding-head technology.
Supplied by Kingsbury, the machine started producing aerospace parts from tough alloys 24/5 from the beginning of 2018. It has been so successful at fulfilling an ongoing contract for producing aero engine components from titanium, Inconel and stainless steel that the business had no hesitation in returning to the same source for a fixed-head lathe. Installed in July 2019, the Traub TNX65 produces parts from Inconel and Nimonic for the same customer.
Both lathes have reduced multiple operations to one-hit production, making it much easier to hold the required tolerances, which are generally to within ±0.01 mm, although one pin diameter has to be turned on the sliding-head lathe to ±4 µm. At the same time, process cycles have been shortened, by over 90% in one case on the TNL32-9P and by typically 70% on the TNX65. Such significant savings are partly a result of the ability on both machines to have three tools in cut simultaneously, each having a different feed rate for optimum metal removal.
Neil Lawson, operations director at Martin Aerospace, says: “Both machines are ideal for the efficient production of parts in high volumes from tough materials, and are platforms for continuous process improvements. This has allowed us to secure additional work, as we are able to provide significant savings to our customers.”
For further information www.kingsburyuk.com