Founded in 2000 by a father and son team, Bloom in Box was initially set up as an injection moulding business applying its combined 50 years of experience to a handful of manual machine tools. Move forward 22 years and David Reardon has taken the reigns from his father and been joined by his children. The company now manufactures a complete range of its own product lines utilising its expertise in injection moulding, toolmaking and design.

In its infancy, the Burscough-based business was working like every toolmaking business – making products for customers in a B2B environment. Now, the company produces scoops and measures for the food and health industry, security fencing and wall spikes, laundry pegs, face visors and of course the floral range of bottle bouquets and the ‘Bloomie’ living vases from where the company gets its name. Bloom in Box is even developing new medical and PPE product lines. The company manufactures all product lines from recycled materials in-house at the Lancashire facility with support from cutting tool manufacturer Industrial Tooling Corporation (ITC).

Bloom in Box produces more than half a million scoops and measures a month, and receives more than 300 orders a day for its security spikes and laundry products, and that is before considering the popular floral side of the business and other projects like run-flat systems for cars.

Among the business challenges for the company concerned its cutting tool supply. Recalling this, owner and co-founder David Reardon says: “We were a small business with a Hurco VM10i machining centre and we used a couple of different and well-known tooling suppliers, none of which supported us fully as a small business. It was around 5-6 years ago we upgraded the machine to a larger Hurco VM20i three-axis VMC and we still had several sales reps suggesting tools that would never fully resolve our issues – until we met Gary Murrey from ITC.”

It was the attention to detail and the time spent supporting and trialling the tools at Bloom in Box that really impressed Reardon.

“Gary helped us with tool set-ups, trials and advice – he put the effort into customer support. The attention to detail and picking the right tools for our applications yielded huge benefits for our business. It wasn’t just the ITC service that was far superior to other companies, it appeared the products were on a different level too.”

Predominantly machining P20 tool steel, Bloom in Box initially trialled the Widia M1200 face milling platform for rough machining. With long tool life and high metal removal rates in rough machining applications, the tool proved a major success and the company adopted both the 32 and 40 mm diameter variants with 7 mm inserts. This choice paved the way for the next tool: the Widia VXF high-feed milling line.

“We were spending a considerable amount on solid-carbide tools and, in the injection mould industry, everything features a taper,” says Reardon. “This meant that we were unable to engage the full tool flutes and we noticed a lot of wear, and a lot of waste as we weren’t using the whole of the tool.”

To negate this issue, Murrey suggested that Bloom in Box try the Widia high-feed indexable series instead of solid carbide tools. The company applied the VXF 07 16 mm diameter and VXF 09 35 mm diameter range and noticed a marked difference in performance and surface finishes with much higher feed rates and shorter cycle times. More importantly, there was a huge reduction in our tooling consumption and costs.

Now, ITC supplies almost all of the cutting tools at Bloom in Box are, as well as Kemmler machine vices.

“We’ve standardised our tool inventory in the machines now, mainly with tools from ITC,” states Reardon. “The machines are set up for ITC tools with ITC’s Kemmler vices, while our Autodesk PowerMill CAM software has all the parameters of the ITC tools loaded into the tool library to simplify set-ups and programming.”

The company now applies a complete raft of ITC tools throughout the business, with ITC’s solid carbide 2162 ball-nosed end mill range proving suitable for profiling intricate parts. The company also uses ITC’s 4052 taper ball-nose tools, 6051 and 6071 end mills series, and the 2002 and the 2012 series of ball-nose tools for aluminium alongside a multitude of Widia tools that include GP series end mills.

More recently the company has invested in the Big Kaiser HMC hydraulic power chucks.

“Bloom in Box is a company that machines injection mould tools which demand exceptional surface finishes,” says Murrey. “To improve tool rigidity and stability, I recommended the Big Kaiser HMC power chuck and the Big Kaiser Mega 6S collet chucks to achieve the desired surface finishes and improve tool life. Initially, David was sceptical, but after a short trial, he was hooked on the benefits of HMC chucks.”

Adds Reardon: “Our secondary hand finishing reduced significantly after we adopted the Big Kaiser HMC chucks and this saved us a lot of time and labour resources. We use a lot of tools with a long overhang for reaching into cavities and difficult-to-reach surfaces; these applications are naturally less robust and stable. The Big Kasier HMC chucks vastly improved the tool stability and run-out to deliver impeccable surface finishes.”

With four Victor injection moulding machines, a FANUC injection moulding machine and three FANUC robots, the company runs its high-tech facility around the clock. Regardless of its 24/7 operations, Bloom-in-Box is aiming to become carbon neutral over the next 12-18 months. The company works with all-electric machines to reduce power consumption and emissions. Investing in state-of-the-art production equipment and solar energy technology, the company is currently calculating its carbon emissions at less than 10 tonnes of CO2 per year. The ultimate goal is net zero.

Furthermore, Bloom in Box has developed innovative techniques to work with food-grade approved polypropylene, which is 100% recyclable. It is also exploring opportunities to work with compostable plastic.

“We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously and use recyclable materials in all our product lines,” concludes Reardon. “With regards to the machine shop, we run it from our solar power and have innovative products from ITC that help to reduce our machining times, power consumption and costs to improve productivity and throughput. It’s a huge help to our business.”
For further information www.itc-ltd.co.uk

Among the growing number of subcontractors now reaping the benefits of Mitutoyo’s recently introduced Crysta-Apex V series of CMMs is Glenrothes-based A&D Precision Engineering. The CMM features a Renishaw RTP20 motorised head with a TP20 touch-trigger probe.

To ensure enhanced quality and efficiency standards, A&D employs a variety of advanced Mitutoyo quality control equipment, including laser-scan micrometers, a Crysta Apex/Ko-Ga-Me shop-floor CMM and a non-contact Quick Vision measuring system.

A&D managing director John Trolland says: “Having recently secured a long-term contract from a multi-national corporation for the production of large, complex components with demanding specifications, we needed a high-precision CMM with a capacity greater than that of our existing machine. After studying the specification and many new features included in the new Crysta-Apex V series, as a previous user of Mitutoyo CMMs I was able to appreciate the technical leap forward in terms of precision, speed, ease of use and flexibility. We were therefore happy to place an order.”

He continues: “A well as our new CMM solving inspection capacity problems and further improving our precision measuring capabilities, its impressive speed has significantly enhanced the throughput of parts in our quality control department. Now, in addition to accurately inspecting single large components, our employees are able to load large batches of smaller parts on to the new machine’s granite bed and start rapid, fully automated CNC routines.

“The rapid action of our new Crysta-Apex V CMM allows our quality personnel to provide quicker feedback related to situations such as component features that are drifting out of tolerance. Also, as our new CMM can perform an increased number of inspection routines each day, it will be able to keep-pace with all anticipated increases in production.”
For further information www.mitutoyo.co.uk

Tenon Engineering enjoys a global reputation for its high-precision manufacturing capabilities. In addition to serving an international scientific equipment client base, the Dorking, Surrey-based business counts companies involved in similarly demanding technical sectors as loyal customers.

Approximately 80% of Tenon Engineering’s output is exported to major markets in the USA, Asia, Africa and mainland Europe. Along with its high-precision subcontract work, the business also manufactures for its sister company, Wallace Instruments, a specialist in the quality assurance testing of rubber, plastics and other materials.

Given the nature of the sectors it serves, and the critical functions that much of its output is designed to perform, quality, accuracy, efficiency and reliability are central to the ethos of the business. To help ensure adherence to these values, Tenon Engineering boasts a comprehensive range of in-house resources, including multi-axis machining, cylindrical grinding, precision sheet metal fabrication, assembly and coil winding, and electrical motor manufacture.

The company’s machining facility houses a variety of advanced CNC machine tools, including a range of Dugard CNC lathes and several multi-axis machining centres. As the company’s machine tools are normally involved in performing the low-volume production of high precision parts, to help minimise job changeover times and reduce non-productive periods, Tenon Engineering’s chief engineer Terry Healy searched for a suitably efficient work-holding system. He found the answer to his quest in a Lang pre-stamping unit along with a collection of Lang Technik Makro Grip Vices.

”Our capabilities and world-class engineering expertise, from the design and development of prototypes to all aspects of manufacturing, means that we can provide innovative solutions across a multitude of industries,” reports Healy. “Therefore, our international customer base includes companies involved in the scientific instrumentation, materials testing equipment, aviation, medical instrumentation and quality control analysis sectors. The nature of our customer means that we generally employ our machine tools in high-value, relatively short machining runs.”

Consequently, with the intention of cutting the times lost in job changeovers and increasing our machining efficiencies, Tenon Engineering invested in Lang Technik’s advanced pre-stamping technology and Makro grip vices.

“The use of Lang Technik’s advanced work-holding systems on our machine tools has achieved our target of significantly speeding-up our job change-over times and increasing the efficiency of our machine tools,” explains Healy. “By using our LANG Technik products, a lot of the work involved in setting-up the next job on a particular machine tool can now be done while the current machining task is still being performed.

“Now, within the cycle time of an existing job, our production staff use our new Lang Technik stamping unit to make high-precision, small indentations into the next workpiece blank to be machined,” he continues. “Then, when the prepared workpiece is clamped into one of our Lang Makro-grip vices, the features on the vice’s jaws engage precisely with the workpiece’s pre-stamped indentations. By using this arrangement, we’re able to achieve outstanding holding power while only needing to apply minimal clamping forces. Also, the rapid loading and unloading of our Lang Technik work holding means we have achieved much quicker job change-over times.”

Adds Healy: “The system’s reduced holding pressure requirement ensures that, under all machining conditions, we’re able to securely clamp from the softest to the hardest of materials without worrying about the component deforming or the vice loosening its grip under high machining loads. An added advantage is that the Lang Technik stamping unit makes its indentations into just the last 3 mm of each workpiece blanks. Therefore, we’re now also making savings on material.”

Notably, the many benefits gained from the use of the innovative Lang Technik pre-stamping technology and Makro grip vices has ensured that the system has become the benchmark clamping method for ultra-secure five-axis machining.

The toothed jaws of conventional vices must perform two distinct roles, in addition to indenting workpiece’s material, they must also securely hold the workpiece under all machining loads. Commonly used vices are only able to exert a maximum pressure of approximately 4-6 tons. As a result, the effective penetration of their jaws into workpiece material can be problematic, especially when clamping harder metals. Also, to ensure adequate piercing of the workpiece, a vice’s teeth must remain sharp. Due to the exposure of vice teeth to high levels of torque and wear in use, their clamping ability inevitably declines. Subsequently, when using conventional vices during the machining of soft, distortion-prone materials, jaw teeth also tend to lose their holding power and work free from components when under machining forces.

Using Land’s advanced stamping technology overcomes these issues by applying up to 20 tons of pressure during the pre-stamping of workpieces. This capability guarantees the creation of precise indentations, even when applied to the hardest of materials. Following pre-stamping, as the teeth of Makro Grip Vices engage exactly with the pre-stamped indents, only relatively low clamping pressure is required to hold the workpiece securely. In addition to holding the workpiece in the vice under the most severe machining conditions, the truncated pyramidal shapes of the pre-stamped indents prevent vice teeth from moving deeper into the workpiece material by providing a defined penetration limit.

Despite the application of comparatively low clamping pressure, the holding forces exerted on workpieces held in Makro Grip vices actually become greater, the harder and more resistant the workpiece material. Moreover, as workpieces are prepared before being loaded into the machine tool, machine downtime reduces significantly.
For further information www.lang-technik.co.uk