Fort Vale Engineering, Burnley, is a manufacturer of stainless steel valves and ancillaries used in the tank container industry for the transportation of bulk liquids and gases by road, rail and sea. The company had been making one particular type of valve for several years in four sequential operations on lathes and machining centres in a lead-time of 24 hours.
To speed throughput and raise profitability, the manufacturer was keen to find a production solution that would see a billet enter a machining platform and a finished component emerge after a much shorter time. Considerable research and trials led to the discovery of the ideal process, which takes just eight hours.

It required the purchase of a Japanese-built Okuma Multus U4000 multi-tasking turn-mill centre with B-axis milling spindle and twin-opposed work spindles from sole UK agent NCMT. The supplier turnkey-engineered the cell with Turn-Cut (interpolation turning) software in the control and a chip reader to keep track of tools on the shop floor.

Stephen Maher, process improvement engineer at the Burnley factory, says: “To manufacture this product in one hit, we needed a turn-mill centre with a long Y-axis movement. This prerequisite was satisfied by the 300 mm Y axis on the relatively compact U4000, saving us having to buy an unnecessarily large and expensive machine.

“However, the most notable attribute of the production centre is Okuma’s Turn-Cut software in the proprietary OSP control,” he continues. “It allows one port in the valve to be machined to an accuracy of +25 µm -0 µm, by exploiting a second mode of turning [interpolation turning] using the milling spindle and a boring bar with a Sandvik CoroTurn carbide insert.

For further information
www.ncmt.co.uk

Stellar Precision Components is boosting capacity at its Bishop’s Stortford facility through investment in a Cincom L20-VIIILFV from Citizen Machinery. The machine joins two existing Cincom models on site, an L32-VIIILFV and
an A20-VII.

Glenn Poleykett began his career in manufacturing in 2006 at his uncle’s firm, making components for darts on Cincom sliding-head and Miyano fixed-head mill-turn centres. He quickly realised that sliding-head lathes with driven tooling were capable of producing virtually any part, provided that it was from 32 mm diameter bar or smaller.

Today, much of the subcontractor’s throughput is destined for the aerospace, medical, electrical connector and pneumatics industries. Batch sizes range from 10 to 40,000 parts and the factory operates 24/7, with two manned shifts per day and three hours of lights-out operation during the early hours of the morning. Operator attendance is necessary for a majority of the time as many of the components that the subcontractor produces are of very high accuracy, from a general tolerance of ±0.1 mm, down to ±5 µm.

The new L20-VIIILFV has Citizen LFV (low-frequency vibration) chip-breaking functionality on both the main and sub spindle, whereas on earlier models it features only on the main spindle.

“LFV is programmable via G-codes to start and stop during any program, breaking what would normally be stringy swarf into smaller chips that cannot wrap around the tool or component,” explains managing director Poleykett.

When turning and drilling 304 or 316 stainless, aluminium, copper or plastic, Poleykett always switches on the LFV function for at least part of the cycle as it has the effect of improving production output through not having to stop the machine for swarf clearance.

For further information
www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

On stand 130 in hall 18, XYZ Machine Tools will use MACH 2022 (4-8 April, Birmingham NEC) to shine the spotlight on its new XYZ SS 65 sub-spindle lathe, a first for the company and one it says is generating lots of interest due to its capability and competitive pricing.

Introduced due to demand from customers seeking increased productivity and reduced spindle downtime, the XYZ SS 65 features a 16.5 kW, 4000 rpm main spindle with 65 mm bar capacity and a 200 mm diameter chuck as standard, as well as an 11 kW, 5000 rpm sub-spindle with 52 mm bore and 150 mm chuck.

The German-built Sauter 12-position turret has live tooling at every station, with 100 mm (±50 mm) Y-axis travel. The C axis on both spindle facilitates contouring, with each featuring a brake to allow substantial milling cuts. Maximum turned diameter is 380 mm and the Z-axis travel is 520 mm, while control is via the Siemens 828D ShopTurn with 15-inch touchscreen.

Also making its MACH debut will be the XYZ ProTurn RLX 780 lathe. Although not new to the range, the sheer scale of this machine has precluded it from appearing previously. Weighing in at 8600 kg, the machine features a swing over the bed of 780 mm (1090 mm in the gap) and a distance between centres of 3000 mm.

A 32 kW motor powers the spindle with the gearbox providing two speed ranges from 20 to 1300 rpm. Control is from the latest RLX ProtoTRAK system with touchscreen interface. Software features include gesture control; constant surface speed; electronic hand wheels to generate tapers, radii and fillets manually; enhanced ProtoTRAK assistant for on-board help at the touch of the screen; and the TRAKing feature.

For further information
www.xyzmachinetools.com

The first new machine acquired by Rugby-based subcontractor Technoset since the onset of the pandemic is a twin-spindle Cincom M32-VIIILFV sliding-head turn-mill centre from Citizen Machinery UK. Replacing two smaller M12 and M16 Cincoms that were about 20 years old, the machine joins a previous-generation M32-VIII bought in 2017. There are also eight twin-spindle, fixed-head Miyano bar-fed lathes on-site from the same supplier for the turning and milling of components from stock up to 64 mm in diameter.

A primary reason for acquiring the latest M32 was a need to machine complex telecoms components, in particular a family of 12 mainly aluminium connector parts for use in the defence industry. Many of them are complex, with a lot of milled detail and drawing tolerances below 10 µm.

Technoset can achieve that level of accuracy reliably, even when running lights-out, partly because the lathe incorporates Citizen’s LFV (low-frequency vibration) software in the Mitsubishi control’s operating system. It is possible to call up variants of the LFV function automatically in any part program to break what would normally be stringy swarf into manageable chips.

Says Technoset’s managing director Kevan Kane: “Citizen Machinery’s M32 sliding-head lathe has been the most important contributor to Technoset’s business since we bought our first one in 2000. Something that has surprised me is the speed with which the machine technology has advanced, resulting in a step-change in performance.”

Improvements to the turning centre include 1.5 times faster live tools powered by a 2.2 kW motor and a programmable, 9000 rpm B axis to enable simultaneous machining in five CNC axes rather than four. Combined with the back tool post, whose Y axis now has adjustable-angle tooling, it enables faster production of more complex parts.

For further information
www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

At the forthcoming MACH 2022 exhibition (4-8 April, Birmingham NEC), Dugard will be showcasing a raft of new machines on stand 640 in hall 20.
For instance, the company will give a MACH premiere to the Hanwha brand of sliding-head turning centres. Dugard says that the robust Hanwha XD38R will draw interest from many manufacturers in this market segment.

For the machining of small and production-run turned parts, the Hanwha XD38R sliding-head turning centre can take advantage of the FANUC 32i-B or Siemens 828D CNC interface. The machine also incorporates the facility to switch rapidly from guide bush to non-guide bush operation. With 38 mm bar capacity and a 6000 rpm, 5.5/7.5 kW main spindle motor complemented by a 6500 rpm 2.2/5.5 kW sub-spindle, the Hanwha XD38R is suitable for any sliding-head machine shop.

For manufacturers seeking an even larger and more powerful turning centre, Dugard will be demonstrating one of its most popular machine tools: the SMEC SL2000ASY turning centre. Built upon the foundation of a single-piece Meehanite casting heavily ribbed with a torque tube design, the SMEC SL2000ASY uses box slide-ways for good vibration damping and thermal displacement characteristics. This combination permits heavy-duty cutting that enhances surface finish, tool life, component quality and productivity, reports Dugard.

The robust machine with sub-spindle hosts a 6-inch chuck (8-inch optional) with a 650 mm swing-over-bed capacity that allows a maximum machining diameter of 395 mm and a maximum turning length of 490 mm. In addition, the SMEC SL2000ASY has a bar capacity of 52 mm (optional 68 mm) and an 18.5 kW spindle motor that combine to enable heavy-duty manually loaded or automatically bar-fed machining of relatively large diameter parts.

For further information
www.dugard.com