UK NEWS

The UK’s largest vertical turning lathe

Sheffield Forgemasters has installed the UK’s largest five-axis vertical turning lathe (VTL) – manufactured by Spanish company BOST – as part of a £6m upgrade to its machining facilities that will improve capacity and throughput for complex machining requirements.

Commissioning of the VTL was attended by delegates from Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, which helped to fund the VTL installation, alongside senior supply chain partners and officials from BOST and its UK supplier, McDowell Machine Tools.
David Bond, CEO, says: “The improvement to our machining facilities is of particular interest to customers in the defence industry as the VTL has superior accuracy and will significantly reduce lead times on delivery for crucial components, both for the UK and US submarine programmes. Our new VTL will also have significant implications for the machining of domed or cylindrical components, such as those required in the civil nuclear power market and pressure vessel sector.”
Weighing almost 250 tonnes, the BOST VTL required the removal of 6000 tonnes of earth and 3400 tonnes of concrete to create a foundation. The machine has a maximum machining height of 4 m, maximum swing diameter of 8.5 m, table weight capacity of 100 tonnes and embraces the Industry 4.0 strategies of process control, adaptive control and real-time interactive maintenance protocols.
Stuart McDowell, managing director at McDowell Machine Tools, says: “BOST hydrosphere machines offer the key benefits of being extremely heavy, rigid and powerful, yet are still capable of the highest levels of accuracy. This technology is a significant investment for Forgemasters and gives the company capability unrivalled in the UK and matched by only a handful of companies throughout the world.”
For further information www.sheffieldforgemasters.com

Investment helps meet 20% growth in demand

A Christchurch-based subcontract machinist has invested in the latest CNC technology to help it meet a 20% growth in orders.

Peter Day Precision Engineers, which is part of the Venture Precision Engineering Group (VPEG), has installed a Nakamura WY150 from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG).
The twin-spindle, twin-turret configuration gives the company the ability to remove a lot of secondary operations, making the overall turning process quicker for customers.
“Our work is very much around manufacturing complex machined components that have to perform in demanding environments, whether that is for aerospace, oil and gas, or the medical sector,” explains general manager Pete Makosa. “Over the past 12 months we have witnessed a 20% increase in orders, which will see the wider VPEG group break through £10m turnover this year. This, combined with a strong pipeline of future orders, means we needed additional CNC turning capabilities, so we asked long-term supplier ETG to come up with a solution.
“Our first Nakamura, a super NTJ, was installed in 2010, so we know how reliable they are and the fact they offer fast metal removal rates while still holding tight limits,” he adds. “The WY150 is a very impressive machine and has the added benefits of being twin spindle and twin turret; that was a very big plus for us.”
Peter Day, which supplies components for blue-chip customers including Curtiss Wright, Planer, Armfield and Eaton, installed the new Nakamura in June and it is already having the desired impact of releasing capacity and meeting increased volumes generated by a clutch of contract wins.
For further information www.engtechgroup.com

Growth matched with investment at LC Precision

Formed in 2013 when Lee Coles bought a one-man machining business, Weymouth-based LC Precision Engineering has achieved sales growth in excess of 600% over the past five years.

The company works across a variety of sectors, including defence, motorsport, nuclear and electronics, mainly focussing on work that could be produced on its three-, four- and five-axis vertical machining centres. To further develop its offer, the company has now invested in new turning capacity in the form of an XYZ SLX 1630 ProTurn lathe.
With five employees, including managing director Lee Coles, LC Precision Engineering may be a small business, but it has big ambitions. Over £175,000 has been spent on new equipment in the past two years.
The XYZ SLX 1630 ProTurn lathe is described by Coles as being “in a different league” when compared with his previous experience on manual lathes. While the SLX 1630 may be the entry point for ProTurn lathes, it comes with a cast bed and base, 400 mm swing over bed capacity, 760 mm distance between centres, and a 5.75 kW, 150-2500 rpm constant surface speed spindle.
The SLX ProtoTrak control was key in the decision by Coles to go with XYZ Machine Tools for his move into CNC turning: “The control system definitely sold the machine to us. We specialise in lower volume work with seven out of 10 jobs being one-offs. Therefore, the ability to easily programme complex forms and be confident that we will achieve a good part first time, every time – thanks to features like TRAKing and Do-One – makes a huge difference.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

BG Engineering plans for future with XYZ

Investing in the future of its business in terms of skills and capacity, BG Engineering is actively recruiting apprentices and has just invested £75,000 with XYZ Machine Tools to create a machining cell that will help apprentices to hone their skills.

The cell comprises an XYZ SMX 5000 bed mill and an XYZ SLX 355 ProTurn lathe. Both are controlled by XYZ’s ProtoTrak control system, which offers simple-to-program capability that makes apprentice training and the machining of one-off and small batch parts straightforward.
“The XYZ machines are unlike anything else we have on the shop floor,” says Chris Brown, director of Cooper Brown Enterprises, which bought a strategic stake in BG Engineering last year. “They provide the perfect introduction to CNC machining and, our apprentices are making full use of the ProtoTrak control’s features, such as TRAKing, as well as learning manual machining skills. The apprentices can gain experience of the ‘feel’ you only get by winding handles to produce parts – thanks to the XYZ machine’s ability to operate
in full CNC or manual mode.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

Name change

Turnkey production solutions provider Geo Kingsbury Machine Tools Ltd, which until recently was best known as Geo Kingsbury, will with immediate effect trade under the name Kingsbury.

The company is sole agent in the UK and Ireland, and more recently in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, for a range of German machining centre and lathe builders, as well as a French additive manufacturing machine producer. Managing director Richard Kingsbury says: “We wanted uniformity in the way we are perceived by industry throughout the country’s into which we sell.”
For further information www.kingsburyuk.com