Taking advantage of relaxed Covid-19 restrictions over the summer, Hurco Europe was one of the first UK machine tool businesses to schedule an autumn open house, which took place earlier this month. Managing director David Waghorn says: “It was great to welcome everyone back to our facility. Nothing can substitute for meeting people face to face. As efficient as Teams and Zoom calls are, they really can’t replace standing in front of a machine and watching it cut metal.”

It would appear that the Hurco customer community agreed. Visitor numbers and pre-registrations were the best to date at the company’s new UK demonstration facility, which opened in 2019. In excess of 100 people from more than 60 companies attended over the two days. The show marked the launch of the new VM ONE, a super-compact, entry-level machining centre that replaces the VM5i. Also on show for the first time in the UK was the BX60i portal machine, which maintains dynamic stability and accuracy despite having large X- and Y-axis travels.

For further information www.hurco.co.uk

In response to emerging global trends, Taiwan Excellence, supported by Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade, invited five Taiwan Excellence Award winning machine tool manufacturers to demonstrate their intelligent solutions in a webinar held alongside the recent EMO Milano 2021 exhibition. Within the main section of the webinar, Taiwan Excellence Award winning enterprises introduced their latest smart solutions and technologies.

The companies participating in the webinar included Tongtai Machine & Tool, Fair Friend Enterprise (FFG), Buffalo Machinery (AXILE), L&L Machinery and HIWIN Technologies. Titled ‘Beyond Smart’, the webinar welcomed 48 media outlets and 171 buyers from around the world. This year, a total of 47 Taiwanese manufacturers participated in the physical EMO Milano exhibition, including HIWIN, AXILE and FFG.

Watch the webinar at https://youtu.be/bdGYg2rhROs?t=56

To enhance the manufacture of technically challenging moulds from hardened stainless steel, Ledwell Plastics has invested in a new Sodick AD35L spark erosion machine from Sodi-Tech EDM. This advanced die-sink EDM machine provides the speed and accuracy required to reduce costs and enhance precision, while also offering low electrode wear and the necessary reliability to facilitate unmanned overnight operations.

“Our toolroom makes moulds from many different materials, everything from aluminium through to hardened stainless steel,” explains managing director Benn Simms. “Recently, however, we were working almost exclusively with the latter material in the production of very small and intricate moulds, a trend that looked set to continue for some time. The problem was our existing die-sink EDM capability, which was somewhat antiquated, meaning we had issues with accuracy and breakdowns that were impacting project timescales and costing a lot in repairs.”

As a result, Ledwell Plastics sought a new die-sink EDM that could work to tolerances of less than 0.025 mm. In addition, the highly technical, hardened stainless steel moulds require a large amount of sparking, so fast processing speed was another factor high on the wish list.

“We looked at existing spark eroders, but after undertaking some research and speaking to other Sodick users, we settled on the AD35L,” says Simms. “During an on-site demonstration at Sodi-Tech EDM we could see that the machine’s performance was particularly impressive with its high-speed linear motors.

“Our new Sodick allows us to run overnight, unlike our previous machine, which we could never trust in that regard, particularly with blind components/features that are difficult to flush,” he continues. “The high-speed linear technology of the AD35L evacuates the cavities much better with its enhanced flow of dielectric fluid.”

For further information
www.sodi-techedm.co.uk

With less than 200 days to go until the opening of MACH 2022, the first national gathering of the UK engineering community post-COVID-19, manufacturers are being urged to use the exhibition to plan their growth strategies and take advantage of booming market conditions.

Show organiser, the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA), says positive economic forecasts suggest there is a strong appetite among manufacturers to do business and, with investment incentives in place, there has never been a better time to acquire machinery that can facilitate growth.

The showpiece exhibition takes place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on 4-8 April 2022. Even with almost seven months until the doors open, the event is already three quarters sold, with more firms are signing up all the time. Recent MACH editions have seen over 20,000 visitors attend.

For further information www.machexhibition.com

Coborn Engineering, which designs and manufactures specialised CNC grinding, polishing and lapping machines for the diamond tooling and gemstone industries, is taking advantage of Kaydon bearings from RA Rodriguez to help boost the performance of its Planetary Grinding (PG) series machines. In this extremely high-precision application, Kaydon bearings are an essential element of the machine, allowing users to process diamond cutting tools to radius form waviness levels of 50 nm (0.00005 mm).

The latest version of the PG series, the PG6, is an automatic, ultra-high precision grinding machine for processing natural or synthetic SCD tools. Coborn’s PG6 is a world-first engineering solution that relies on high-quality bearings for the precision manufacture of controlled waviness and complex geometry tools.

To verify the performance of its PG6 machines, Coborn performs a TRC [tool radius check], which is essentially a microscope with image analysis software to measure tool radius and radius waviness.

“The system generates custom-designed QC graphical data sheets that we can then supply with the associated tool,” explains Bullman. “Our PG Series machines generate waviness values of sub 50 nm, which is market leading. The bearings are a key part of the machine, allowing users to process diamond tooling to these accuracies.”

RA Rodriguez supplies Coborn with Kaydon KD series high-precision, angular contact, preloaded bearings in duplex (back-to-back) configuration. Each Coborn PG machine requires a pair of these 7-inch diameter bearings. The company has been a customer of RA Rodriguez for the past 22 years and has been using Kaydon KD series bearings since 2013.

Concludes Bullman: “We are a very well established customer of RA Rodriguez and appreciate their high-quality products and the support offered over the years, which continues to this day.”

For further information
www.rarodriguez.co.uk