In 2015 Ray Harris set up his own subcontracting company, Driven Precision Engineering, to specialise in F1 manufacturing. He rents space on the shop floor of LW&T Engineering, another contract machining firm in the Farlington district of Portsmouth.

A second-hand, three-axis machining centre was his first purchase, followed by a five-axis model from the same supplier a year later. The latter machine extended the complexity of work that could be taken on by exploiting simultaneous five-axis machining and allowing more efficient manufacture of standard parts by positioning and clamping the two rotary axes.
To add another spindle and increase the size of work that can be undertaken to 850 x 700 x 500 mm, his latest purchase is another five-axis machining centre, this time a Hermle C400 supplied by Geo Kingsbury. Harris describes how he came to buy a machine costing significantly more than a five-axis machining centre of equivalent capacity from the incumbent supplier.
“It was our tooling supplier, Betta-Cut in Southampton, that suggested we look at Hermle, as the sales engineer is an ex-employee of Geo Kingsbury and knew the machines well,” he says. “I searched on the internet and found only positive comments about the machines. Normally you can unearth some negatives about machine tools on discussion forums, but I couldn’t find any about Hermle.
“Then I went to a subcontractor in Gosport, Norjon, whose owner Kevin Fox has operated five-axis Hermles for many years and now has five,” he continues. “He didn’t have a bad word to say about them either, so the C400 more or less sold itself.”
For further information www.geokingsbury.com

Around 10 years ago, Jan van Jaarsveld bought Clayton Precision Engineering and made the decision to concentrate on the aerospace industry. Today around 90% of the company’s business comes from this sector, including a long-term contract to supply parts and assemblies for the world’s largest manufacturer of ejector seats.

“The business is going from strength-to-strength,” he says. “Three years ago Clayton merged with another specialist engineering company, RA Fores Ltd. This merger dictated a move into a second unit, more than doubling our floor area, which we began filling with new Haas CNC equipment.
“We like the Haas machines; they’re quick, accurate and reliable and the back-up has been outstanding,” he adds. “Over the years, I’ve invested heavily in Haas; currently we have two Mini Mills, a VF-1 and seven VF-2SS Super Speed verticals. The most recent arrival is a five-axis VF-2SS with a trunnion table.”
The new five-axis machine is currently producing L168 aluminium components for ejector seats, reducing the number of operations from eight to just two. Furthermore, cycle times have been cut by 25%.
“It goes without saying that accuracy is vital when you’re dealing with parts that save lives,” says van Jaarsveld. “Our inspection department maintains quality control. All testing equipment is calibrated to national standards and we operate a TQM policy with recorded inspection undertaken at every stage of the job.”
Haas Automation’s VF-2SS has 762 x 406 x 508 mm travels, and comes as standard with a 12,000 rpm spindle and a 24+1 side-mount tool changer for tool changes that take less than 1.6 seconds tool-to-tool.
For further information www.haas.co.uk

Ashbourne-based Thermoform Ltd, a manufacturer of bespoke vacuum and pressure formed plastic packaging solutions, has invested in a large-capacity Doosan three-axis VMC supplied by Mills CNC. The machine, a DNM 6700, was installed in the company’s toolroom facility in July 2017 and, just a couple of days following its delivery, was being put through its paces machining complex, precision prototype and production-ready aluminium mould tool parts.
These mould tools, when complete, are used by Thermoform to manufacture (at its adjacent 24/7 production facility) bespoke and often high-volume ‘thin-gauge’ plastic trays, clamshells, blisters and hinged containers for customers operating in the confectionary and bakery, meat, fruit and vegetable, pharmaceutical, toiletries, electronics, and DIY sectors.

Thermoform manufactures some 70 million plastic parts annually, and demand for its products, fuelled by organic growth and new contract wins, has grown exponentially in recent years. This upsurge in demand was putting pressure on the company’s toolroom: in particular the in-house CNC machining capacity and capabilities.
“The investment in the DNM 6700 enables us to machine large, as well as multiple smaller parts, in one set-up,” says managing director Matthew Perks. “As a consequence, cycle times have improved and bottlenecks have been eased considerably.”
Although still early days, Thermoform’s investment in a new Doosan DNM 6700 vertical machining centre is already paying dividends. A recent example of the power and performance of the DNM 6700 has seen a reduction in cycle time when machining a specific mould tool component from 8 hours to just 48 minutes.
For further information www.millscnc.co.uk

In order to meet demand for quick turnaround on low volume parts, and with the company’s original mill coming to the end of its life and now obsolete, Alstonefield-based Tractor Spare Parts Ltd placed an order for a two-axis XYZ SMX 2000 turret mill, specifying the optional DXF converter.

“For many of the parts we make I have to create new CAD files as drawings either never existed or the originals are long gone,” says co-owner Andrew Griffin. “The ability to then export the DXF file straight to the ProtoTrak control is a sizable advantage. The support available from XYZ is also a big plus. When the machine first arrived I struggled to get to grips with the DXF side of things, so XYZ sent an applications engineer to us here in the middle of the Peak District who spent time explaining the system. Everything fell into place and now it is second nature.”
Co-owner Joanna Griffin adds: “The tractor spares side of the business is all mail order via our website, but due to the nature of the parts we are producing and the age of the vehicles they are being fitted to, there may have been modifications along the way. Therefore, we tend to contact customers directly and discuss what they actually want. These conversations ensure that they get exactly the part they need and Andrew can tailor the manufacture of that component easily with the XYZ SMX mill. We are then confident to ship it halfway around the world in the knowledge that it will fit.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com