The workshops of the Llangollen Railway provide maintenance for the firm’s own rolling stock, as well as supporting other heritage railways around the UK and building brand new steam locomotives to order.

Like many such organisations, Llangollen Railway relies on donations, not only of cash and time, but also machine tools. However, when one particular project came up, the decision was taken to invest in new machinery in the form of an XYZ SLX 425 ProTurn lathe.
Llangollen Railway was tasked with the restoration of the iconic streamlined A4-class locomotive, Sir Nigel Gresley. In its life, the locomotive has had many overhauls, and the latest is taking place in full public view at the National Railway Museum in York by the Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Company Volunteers, except for its boiler, which has been stripped of its streamlining and transferred to Llangollen for refurbishment and re-certification. Part of the work involves replacing the boiler stays. As the boiler requires 296 of these stays of various lengths, with Whitworth threads at either end, an upgrade from manual turning was deemed wise.
The railway therefore took the decision to invest in an XYZ SLX 425 ProTurn lathe with 1.25 m between centres; a selection that is paying dividends as each boiler stay can now be machined complete in half the time that they previously took on a manual lathe.
“The ProtoTrak control makes life very easy as it guides you through everything; the ‘Traking’ feature is very handy and the ‘Do-One’ canned cycle feature in the control is extremely useful for machining features such as radii and chamfers,” says machinist Michael O’Toole.
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

The ability to change its recently installed Citizen Cincom A20-VII sliding-head turn-mill centre into a non-guide bush variant for applications on plastic components and shorter length parts, while retaining the guide bush assembly for longer parts, has enabled Colpa Precision Engineering to cut weeks from its lead time with significantly reduced material costs.

Says general manager Martin Branch: “The removable guide bush feature on the Cincom A20 has increased our competitiveness in a tight market as we no longer have to order pre-ground bar for plastic components, which has not only reduced material cost but saved four weeks on our lead time to customers and enabled us to pick-up new business.”
Branch also confirms that by replacing an ageing Citizen Cincom C16 with the new A20, Colpa is slightly reducing cycle times, but more important to customers, improving productivity, consistency, uptime and machining accuracy, which is again helping to lower lead times.
Recent investment has been consistent at Colpa with some £560,000 spent over the past three years. In addition to machining centres and fixed-head lathes, six Citizen sliding-head machines are installed at the Watford site. The recent Cincom A20-VII installation is now mainly used for plastic parts and some aluminium, to which Branch says: “We ran our first production batch with the guide bush installed and then removed it in less than 45 minutes. So
far we have never used it again due to the advantages that we gained without it on smaller parts.”
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Lincolnshire-based Destec Engineering has recently invested in a large-capacity Doosan vertical turning centre from Mills CNC.

The ram-type machine, a Puma VTS 1620M, is now in situ at the company’s facility in Washingborough, where it is being put through its paces machining a range of large, heavy and performance-critical precision components made from difficult-to-machine materials that include Inconel and Duplex stainless steel.
Once machined, these components, which are custom manufactured to order, undergo inspection and testing before being assembled into Destec-branded, high-pressure containment units used extensively, although not exclusively, by customers operating in the offshore sector.
Specific high-pressure containment systems designed and manufactured by Destec include the company’s best-selling G-Range clamp connector and GSB single-bolt subsea connector ranges.
Many components used in Destec’s larger-sized connectors are being machined on the new Doosan VTS 1620M, as operations manager John Mullenger explains: “We needed additional large vertical turning capacity to meet demand and integrate into our customised, made-to-order manufacturing operation. There were a number of specific requirements, in addition to the machine’s working range and table-load capacity, which needed to be satisfied and, armed with our list of ‘must-haves’, we investigated the market and approached a number of machine tool suppliers.
“The VTS 1620M is a solidly built machine and was 10 tonnes heavier than other machines we considered,” he adds. “We’ve been impressed with the machine’s cutting capabilities. Components can be machined efficiently and the machine’s driven tooling capabilities mean we benefit from reduced cycle times. The VTS 1620M has helped us reduce production bottlenecks caused by having to transfer parts between machines.”
For further information www.millscnc.co.uk