FEATURE ON CNC LATHES AND TURNING CENTRES

Turning centre makes light work of plastics

Cannock-based Kenson Industrial Plastics has invested in a Tornos DT26 turning centre to help it machine spacers, rollers, washers, threaded gears, insulating pads and machine guarding from materials such as nylon, polyethylene, PVC, PTFE, PEEK and other plastics.

The four-employee company won a contract to manufacture gear motor components in batches of 10,000 per month, and this instigated the search for a new turning centre.
Managing director Kevin Hutcheson says: “The parts being machined are only 12 mm diameter. We looked at all the sliding-head suppliers, as well as a few other options, but the Tornos DT26 fitted our business perfectly. Other vendors recommended running neat oil, which is standard for sliding-head machines. However, Tornos said we could run the DT26 with either soluble or neat oil. As we machine plastic parts, we want to avoid staining from oil, or cleaning oil from plastic parts. Tornos had instantly tipped the scales in their favour.”
The machine instantly reduced the cycle time of the gear components (which are made of Ertalyte TX) from 50 to 25 seconds per part, taking more than seven days off the previous monthly production schedule. Additionally, the facility to work with and without the guide bush has reduced material consumption.
Historically, Kenson has only operated on a single eight-hour shift basis. However, the Tornos DT26 has been supplied with a
3 m barfeed and the Tornos Active Chip Breaker (ACB) system for lights-out machining. Referring to this, Hutcheson says: “We’ve only ever run day-shift machining, but now we have the Tornos and its ACB system, we can look at unmanned running.”
For further information www.tornos.com

£700,000 investment marks anniversary

A Warwickshire precision manufacturing specialist is celebrating 40 years in business by completing a £700,000 investment drive.

Technoset, which employs 25 people at its facility in Rugby, has installed four new lathes and a laser-scanning device to support the machining and measurement of complex components for customers involved in the aerospace (civil and defence), medical and fibre-optics markets.
Supported by the Manufacturing Growth Programme (MGP), the company has also successfully worked towards and secured AS9100 Rev D, a quality accreditation that is fast becoming a prerequisite for winning and maintaining high-profile contracts in the aerospace sector. The award will ensure it can deliver more than £1.4m of orders to produce engine, actuation, interior lighting and landing-gear parts.
Kevan Kane, managing director of Technoset, explains: “Critical to our future growth was securing the AS9100 Rev D quality award, which is a very demanding and stringent process. As an SME, this process can be a very time-consuming exercise, so we turned to the MGP, which provided us with a continuous improvement plan and then part-funded a specialist consultant to work with us on refining our operations and developing new strategies.
“The support was invaluable and ensured senior managers could focus on what we do best; producing complex components for our global customer base,” he continues. “MGP is an easy-to-access resource that I would recommend to other SME manufacturers.”
Michelle Connor, manufacturing growth manager at MGP, adds her support: “This is a great example of how targeted business support can help a manufacturer unlock new opportunities and safeguard contracts.”
For further information www.manufacturingrowthprogramme.co.uk

GCH wins business with large-capacity lathe

Fortune favours the brave, so they say, and there is no doubt that GCH Precision Engineering is reaping the rewards of investing in a Hyundai-Wia heavy-duty, large-capacity CNC turning machine.

After realising that OEMs across a number of industries were struggling to locally source (within Scotland) large-capacity machining for complex parts requiring milling as well as turning operations, Graham Hawthorne, CEO of the East Kilbride (Glasgow) based company, knew that GCH could secure this work if he installed the Hyundai-Wia L500LMA slant-bed lathe with C axis and driven tools.
The result is that GCH is now cost-effectively processing a wide variety of work that falls within the turning length and diameter capacities of 2109 and 690 mm, respectively, on the machine supplied by TW Ward CNC Machinery.
Included in the order book are workpieces being machined from most materials – from EN3A steel to EN36 high-tensile steel, aluminium, super duplex, Inconel and plastics for clients in the aerospace, oil and gas, food and drink, and pharmaceutical sectors, for instance, as well as parts for robotic machinery and components for the onshore drilling industry.
“Knowing that such work was increasingly being outsourced either overseas or south of the border, I knew that we had the in-house skills to handle such projects – all I needed was the machining capacity,” says Hawthorne. “At the same time, we needed to replace some ageing machines – a radial arm drill, a manual lathe and an older, smaller capacity CNC lathe – and while the Hyundai-Wia has effectively replaced all these, it has, importantly, also extended our capacity to satisfy this larger work.”
For further information www.wardcnc.com

Diamond investment for tooling business

Astley Diamond Tools is a two-person business based in Witton, Birmingham that recently made a significant investment in the latest Low Frequency Vibration (LFV) turn-mill technology from Citizen Machinery UK.

And, within just three months of installation, proprietor Ben Astley has been able to transform the firm’s blank-turning operations for its diamond-tool production and open a door to new revenue
by using his sliding-head machining platform to provide
a subcontract turn-milling service.
“Swarf problems totally controlled our business of machining silver steel blanks to which we then electro-plate diamond finishes,” says Astley, who is progressively appreciating the benefits accruing from the installation of a Citizen Cincom L20-VIIILFV turn-mill centre. He describes a recent example of 500 rotary diamond burrs used to fettle cast iron. Astley relays how he had to almost stand by his previous aging Citizen sliding-head machine and stop it every five or so parts to clear the tangled bird’s nest of swarf that had accumulated.
“It would take at least 70 hours to produce the batch, but now, with LFV, I can complete the same order well inside 16 hours. I can now concentrate on the electro-plating, packaging and other duties such as paperwork. Most surprising, perhaps, is that new machine has opened a new door in providing customers with a subcontract turning service. Customers who often just call
in to collect parts or give me
an order for diamond tools or plating work are immediately impressed by the new machine and giving me orders for other turning work.”
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

The all-round solution in machining

MS40C-8 is the name given to an eight-spindle machine tool from Index for the fully automated production of complex components.

Indeed, there are a number of good reasons why the CNC multi-spindle machine, made near Esslingen, Germany and driven by Kollmorgen servo technology, is seen as a true all-around solution in machining technology.
For instance, the optimum speed and feed rate can be programmed for each spindle location and each cutting edge, and these can even be modified during the cutting process. Moreover, the eight fluid-cooled motor spindles integrated in the spindle drum are infinitely variable, require no maintenance, and are driven with synchronous motors. Kollmorgen AKM permanent magnet servomotors are installed in the cross slides.
Index uses the Kollmorgen motors, in part, as positioning axes for the tools. High-power density enables compact designs that take up less space when installed in the work area. Furthermore, the good torque density of the AKM synchronous servomotors allows Index to convert the rotational movement of the motors into a linear motion without gears. The ball bearing spindles are connected directly to the motor shaft for this purpose.
A lack of gears means there are fewer moving parts, and improves the zero backlash and overall stiffness of the drive. Index needs zero backlash and stiffness, especially with multi-stage thread cutting, so that the tool always completes the next machining step precisely using the threading attachment.
Fitting with Drive-CLiQ is an example of how the synchronous servomotors from Kollmorgen can adapt to the diversity of CNC and automation technology, particularly for machining. This design configuration lets machine builders use drives outside of closed systems, without losing any of the convenience or performance benefits.
For further information www.kollmorgen.com