The installation of five more Cincom CNC sliding-head turning centres from Citizen Machinery at Renishaw raises the metrology equipment producer’s tally of lathes from this supplier to 58. Renishaw’s annual output of components from the machines exceeds 2.5 million.

Three of the latest 12 mm capacity Cincom B12 lathes fitted with Iemca Elite 112 bar magazines were installed at Renishaw’s Miskin plant in Wales, where 20 Citizen sliding-head turn-mill centres are already in use. The other two went to the company’s Stonehouse factory in Gloucestershire.
Robert Horsley, senior production engineer, says: “This latest investment in Citizen lathes, which raised the number we use by nearly 10%, was driven by increased demand for our measurement technology. The B12 lathes are mainly used for turning and milling 303 stainless steel bar to manufacture styli and other probe components. We normally produce a month’s worth for stock, which can be anything from 1200- to 30,000-off, before we change over a machine to start a new batch. Run times are at least eight hours.
A number of different materials are processed, ranging from mild, stainless, carbon and low-alloy steels, through brass and aluminium, to corrosion-resistant copper-nickel-zinc alloys. According to Horsley, all of the lathes hold tolerances down to ±20 µm parallelism and squareness, and ±50 µm on milled features. Surface finish down to Ra 0.4 is easily achievable, doing away with the need to cylindrically grind cosmetic features.
Head of communications for Renishaw, Chris Pockett, says: “We have standardised on Citizen sliding-head turning machines since the 1980s, when the company demonstrated what, at the time, was ground-breaking technology. The commonality of lathe layout ensures ease of training and complete flexibility for our production engineering staff to develop processes and program any machine.”
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Moving to ‘one-hit’ machining has delivered a Lancashire precision engineering specialist a £500,000 boost after securing a string of new orders.

Merc Aerospace, which employs 50 people at its facility in Barrowford, has seen turnover rise to £4.2m thanks to a sustained investment drive that has included the purchase of two CNC turn-mill machines from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG).
The company has replaced five older models with two Nakamura WT150II machines as part of its commitment to lean manufacturing and reducing lead times for customers that include Airbus, AgustaWestland, BAE Systems and Bombardier.
“We are focused on offering our clients the lowest total cost of acquisition solution for their precision components,” explains Richard Meade, commercial director at Merc Aerospace. “This is where the two Nakamuras really come into their own and ensure we live up to our promise, delivering fantastic control, speed and repeatable quality. Our customers have been so impressed with these new capabilities that they’ve even placed new product orders, building on a £500,000 increase in annual sales for the past 12 months.”
The turret-mounted power tooling ensures components with complex milled features are coming off virtually burr-free and generally as part of a one-hit operation.
Says Meade: “Our ‘one-hit’ machining approach has really improved the company’s productivity and, in turn, made us more competitive when looking to secure new opportunities both at home and overseas. We’re not going to stand still though. The emphasis is on continuous improvement and we have already signed-off further investment, with delivery of a twin-spindle, triple-turret Nakamura NTY3-150 multi-axis lathe scheduled for later this month.”
For further information www.engtechgroup.com

Cheshire Seals & Components Ltd (Cheshire Seals), based in Warrington, has recently extended its workshop capacity with a new Harrison Alpha 1550XS manual/CNC lathe from Colchester Machine Tool Solutions.

Managing director Paul Wallace says: “We had an existing Colchester centre lathe which had been very useful to us, but we needed the machining flexibility that the Alpha could bring. We bought plenty of extra kit for the Alpha and from day one it’s been put through its paces. The machine is performing well and is certainly earning its money.”
Cheshire Seals is a family-run, independent manufacturer of machined parts in a wide variety of materials, ranging from aluminium to zirconium, taking in duplex stainless steels and nickel alloys, and many exotic metals, through to plastics and rubbers for seal manufacture. The company also takes initial customer design concepts and converts them into fully finished products, whether it’s a one-off prototype or a full production run.
Wallace adds: “We looked at other CNC machines but felt that the flexibility of the Alpha lathe and its various modes of operation within the Fanuc system were strong factors in our decision. We find that the machine torque is excellent for cutting harder materials, while the lathe has significantly improved our cutting and program creation times by using ISO programming and the eight-station turret.”
The 2 m between-centres Harrison Alpha 1550XS has a swing over bed of 554 mm and a 104 mm spindle bore. A large 15 kW motor allows spindle speeds up to 2000 rpm.
For further information www.colchester.co.uk

From accepting and programming any CAD file, to dynamic roughing and precision finishing, Mastercam 2019 Lathe from CNC Software provides a variety of techniques to turn parts as required. Available in the UK from 4D Engineering, Mastercam 2019 Lathe features a newly developed tool designer, turn-mill environments and multiple plunge functionality.

Tools can be built from 3D STEP models using the software’s tool designer, which is a function panel with tab-style navigation that provides a structured workflow similar to using a wizard. Users can define tools, assign them to operations, and view them when running ‘Classic Backplot’ and Mastercam Simulator.
Mastercam 2019 allows lathe users to run select turn-mill machine environments. Here, operators can experience automated job set-up and part transfer, full machine simulation, and simplified programming of C/Y-axis toolpaths.
A further newly developed feature is the lathe groove toolpath, which includes a multiple plunge option that permits users to rough-out a groove with rib cuts. Consistent tool pressure can result in better chip control and more even tool wear. Multiple plunge gives the option to machine ribs with a more aggressive feed rate than in initial plunges.
Additional functions of Mastercam 2019 Lathe include improved support for cross-centerline turning, and full integration of the PrimeTurning toolpath strategy from Sandvik Coromant.
For further information www.mastercam.co.uk

As one of the UK’s foremost exponents of machining plastic components, Hertfordshire-based Plastic Turned Parts continues to invest in its future. The recent arrival of two Citizen sliding-head lathes means that the company’s total investment in 2018 exceeded £400,000.

The two new machines, a Citizen L20 with its LFV technology and a Citizen B16E sliding-head lathe, bring the total number of CNC lathes to 11, all of which are used solely for the machining of a wide range of plastic materials. Plastic Turned Parts fills the volume niche where injection moulding is not viable due to time and/or cost restraints, or where the plastic material is simply not capable of being moulded.
“Everything we machine here is plastic and we are able to achieve much greater dimensional accuracy, with no concerns over shrinkage,” says Jonathan Newis, managing director. “Three of our Citizen machines have LFV technology, which is ideal for machining plastics as swarf can be controlled precisely.”
Growth at Plastic Turned Parts is coming from old and new customers across a diverse range of industries. One particular client has increased its requirement for two specific components from 50,000 each, to 150,000 each, and one of the two new machines will be dedicated to that work. This increase is down to strong global sales among its customers and a trend in reshoring parts.
“Customers are seeing distinct advantages to having plastic parts machined rather than moulded, mainly around cost and timescale relating to manufacturing mould tools, but also the consistent quality that machining can bring,”
says Newis.
For further information www.plasticturnedparts.co.uk