A Black Country manufacturer that supplies critical components to iconic buildings, train stations, sport stadiums and power stations is celebrating a big birthday in style. Hague Fasteners, which produces non-standard fasteners and bespoke bolts, turned 50 years old last week and marked the big anniversary by investing more than £100,000 into a new three-axis CNC lathe to help it deliver more complex parts and increased capacity.

The new XYZ CT 65 LTY is already playing its part in the delivery of contracts for the oil and gas sector, with the company hoping the additional turnover will help it move towards its target of £2m sales by the end of the year.

Managing director Jon Hague says: “The new three-axis CNC lathe is a perfect way to celebrate five decades in business and puts a marker in the sand for the technology we’re trying to embed into our future capabilities.”

Hague Fasteners has been manufacturing in the Black Country for the past five decades, its most recent move being to an 8500 sq ft factory in Willenhall in 2017. From here, the company produces specialist fasteners, headed bolts, studs, nuts and milled components in high-integrity materials and critical nickel alloys. Hague Fasteners can produce parts ranging in size from 2 to 250 mm in diameter.

Company owner Claire Hague says: “We also wanted to do something in our 50th year that left a lasting positive legacy, so we made the commitment to become carbon neutral by 2024.

This has seen us create the ‘Hague Forest’, where we will endeavour to plant and grow 200 trees every year in Haiti, Kenya and Madagascar to offset the 75 tonnes of CO2 we create manufacturing specialist fasteners for use across the globe.”

For further information
www.haguefasteners.co.uk

As part of its continued investment strategy, Velden Engineering has ordered a Nakamura-Tome NTY3-150 twin-spindle, three-turret turning centre from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG). With delivery planned for next month, the new addition to the plant list will complement existing Nakamura-Tome turning centres at Velden Engineering.

Based in Bolton, the foundations of the company were formed as a partnership in 1973, and when the company acquired another business in 1984, the name Velden Engineering was born. Velden rapidly reached 50 employees and over 100 by 1990, and was the first UK job shop to achieve ISO9001 in 1987.

Today, the subcontract manufacturer offers a complete range of services including CNC machining, laser cutting, waterjet machining, sheet metalwork, assembly, product build, busbar production, design and development and more.

In 2012, the company acquired its first Nakamura-Tome turning centre, a WT100 compact twin-spindle, twin-turret machine. A year later Velden took delivery of a larger Nakamura-Tome WT150II twin-spindle, twin-turret turning centre with an upper turret Y axis after winning a new contract. A second WT150II arrived in 2017, followed more recently by a third.

“Many of the enquiries we’re starting to receive now are for parts in higher volumes with increased complexity,” says plant manager Lee Valentine. “As a three-turret machine, all with Y-axis capabilities, the Nakamura NTY3-150 opens up a greater opportunity to do even more simultaneous machining and will deliver even faster cycle times. This is possible through the use of special tooling on what will be very price-sensitive parts. The additional cost of the Nakamura NTY3-150 will be offset by allowing us to be even more competitive on certain packages of work and will therefore enable us to win a lot of new business.”

For further information
www.engtechgroup.com

Orders received by the German machine tool industry in the third quarter of 2021 were 69% up on the previous year’s figure. Orders from Germany rose by 67%, while foreign orders were 71% higher than in the previous year. Of particular note, orders received by German machine tool manufacturers increased by 61% in the first three quarters of the year.

“The levels of orders on hand are good, although supply bottlenecks and sharp rises in the price of raw materials and components are increasingly holding back business,” says Dr Wilfried Schäfer, executive director of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association). “Orders are expected to continue rising in the coming months. They are being driven by catch-up effects that will continue for quite some time.”

For further information www.vdw.de

Norton Motorcycles has officially opened its new headquarters at Solihull in the West Midlands. The 73,000 sq ft facility is complete with state-of-the-art equipment and the capacity to manufacture up to 8000 motorcycles per year. With the creation of many highly-skilled jobs, Norton has more than doubled in size and expanded its leadership team with all departments housed under one roof.

Inside the production area, new equipment and tooling improve the manufacturing processes for motorcycles, with every stage designed with quality and consistency in mind. In fabrication, the inspection of frame tubes takes place prior to polishing and in-house welding. Finally, the manual polishing of the frames gives them their complete finish and shine. Even more exciting, Norton now has its own in-house non-destructive and destructive testing laboratory.

For further information www.nortonmotorcycles.com

A well-established manufacturer of heavy-duty lathes and mills based in Gipuzkoa, Spain, BOST Machine Tools Co (BOST) is reducing machine set-up time by 50% and improving rotary axis accuracy with Renishaw’s XR20-W rotary axis calibrator and off-axis rotary software.

With an increasingly demanding market, BOST was facing the need to verify and improve the precision of rotary axes – the primary challenge being the calibration of rotary B axes. B-axis calibration is critical in five-axis machine performance verification to maintain quality, but due to the design of the rotary heads, it was not possible to mount equipment at the centre of these axes to confirm performance. BOST also wanted to improve the performance of C axes, which the company measured previously using a pentaprism system. This method offered no measurement flexibility; a 360° test is limited to capturing 12 positions at 30° intervals.

Renishaw engineers demonstrated the XR20-W rotary axis calibrator on various machines at BOST. The XR20-W offered complete flexibility with test method set-up. It became possible to configure tests with capture intervals and measurement ranges to suit the requirements of the axis in question. Furthermore, Renishaw’s off-axis rotary software allowed BOST to mount the XR20-W away from the centre of axis rotation, providing a simple solution for the calibration of rotary B axes. In fact, this flexibility enabled the company to see improvements in specification for both rotary B and C axes.

BOST decided to purchase the XR20-W rotary axis calibrator as it offered the best five-axis calibration solution for its requirements. When used in conjunction with the company’s existing XL-80 laser interferometer it provides high accuracy of ±1 arc seconds, easy set-up, and fast data capture.

For further information
www.renishaw.com