The workshops of the Llangollen Railway provide maintenance for the firm’s own rolling stock, as well as supporting other heritage railways around the UK and building brand new steam locomotives to order.

Like many such organisations, Llangollen Railway relies on donations, not only of cash and time, but also machine tools. However, when one particular project came up, the decision was taken to invest in new machinery in the form of an XYZ SLX 425 ProTurn lathe.
Llangollen Railway was tasked with the restoration of the iconic streamlined A4-class locomotive, Sir Nigel Gresley. In its life, the locomotive has had many overhauls, and the latest is taking place in full public view at the National Railway Museum in York by the Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Company Volunteers, except for its boiler, which has been stripped of its streamlining and transferred to Llangollen for refurbishment and re-certification. Part of the work involves replacing the boiler stays. As the boiler requires 296 of these stays of various lengths, with Whitworth threads at either end, an upgrade from manual turning was deemed wise.
The railway therefore took the decision to invest in an XYZ SLX 425 ProTurn lathe with 1.25 m between centres; a selection that is paying dividends as each boiler stay can now be machined complete in half the time that they previously took on a manual lathe.
“The ProtoTrak control makes life very easy as it guides you through everything; the ‘Traking’ feature is very handy and the ‘Do-One’ canned cycle feature in the control is extremely useful for machining features such as radii and chamfers,” says machinist Michael O’Toole.
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

The ability to change its recently installed Citizen Cincom A20-VII sliding-head turn-mill centre into a non-guide bush variant for applications on plastic components and shorter length parts, while retaining the guide bush assembly for longer parts, has enabled Colpa Precision Engineering to cut weeks from its lead time with significantly reduced material costs.

Says general manager Martin Branch: “The removable guide bush feature on the Cincom A20 has increased our competitiveness in a tight market as we no longer have to order pre-ground bar for plastic components, which has not only reduced material cost but saved four weeks on our lead time to customers and enabled us to pick-up new business.”
Branch also confirms that by replacing an ageing Citizen Cincom C16 with the new A20, Colpa is slightly reducing cycle times, but more important to customers, improving productivity, consistency, uptime and machining accuracy, which is again helping to lower lead times.
Recent investment has been consistent at Colpa with some £560,000 spent over the past three years. In addition to machining centres and fixed-head lathes, six Citizen sliding-head machines are installed at the Watford site. The recent Cincom A20-VII installation is now mainly used for plastic parts and some aluminium, to which Branch says: “We ran our first production batch with the guide bush installed and then removed it in less than 45 minutes. So
far we have never used it again due to the advantages that we gained without it on smaller parts.”
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Lincolnshire-based Destec Engineering has recently invested in a large-capacity Doosan vertical turning centre from Mills CNC.

The ram-type machine, a Puma VTS 1620M, is now in situ at the company’s facility in Washingborough, where it is being put through its paces machining a range of large, heavy and performance-critical precision components made from difficult-to-machine materials that include Inconel and Duplex stainless steel.
Once machined, these components, which are custom manufactured to order, undergo inspection and testing before being assembled into Destec-branded, high-pressure containment units used extensively, although not exclusively, by customers operating in the offshore sector.
Specific high-pressure containment systems designed and manufactured by Destec include the company’s best-selling G-Range clamp connector and GSB single-bolt subsea connector ranges.
Many components used in Destec’s larger-sized connectors are being machined on the new Doosan VTS 1620M, as operations manager John Mullenger explains: “We needed additional large vertical turning capacity to meet demand and integrate into our customised, made-to-order manufacturing operation. There were a number of specific requirements, in addition to the machine’s working range and table-load capacity, which needed to be satisfied and, armed with our list of ‘must-haves’, we investigated the market and approached a number of machine tool suppliers.
“The VTS 1620M is a solidly built machine and was 10 tonnes heavier than other machines we considered,” he adds. “We’ve been impressed with the machine’s cutting capabilities. Components can be machined efficiently and the machine’s driven tooling capabilities mean we benefit from reduced cycle times. The VTS 1620M has helped us reduce production bottlenecks caused by having to transfer parts between machines.”
For further information www.millscnc.co.uk

A precision machining specialist has taken its CNC machine spending to £1m with the installation of a fourth machine in just two years.

Muller Holdings, which employs 130 people across its four sites in the West Midlands and South Wales, has purchased a Nakumura NTY3-150 from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG) to help it meet increases in automotive work and free-up capacity for new contracts.
The company will use the three-turret, twin-spindle machine with 3 m barfeed to reduce the cycle time of a new suspension part by 30-40%.
“This is the fourth Nakamura we have purchased from ETG, equating to over £1m of investment in the latest CNC technology to help us continue supplying our global customer base with precision parts,” explains managing director Adam Cunningham. “All of the machines have been very reliable and offer excellent cutting performance. The latest one has three turrets and twin spindles that allow us to overlap a number of secondary ops, making the overall process quicker. This approach has now been adopted for other parts and is proving very successful in helping us win new business both at home and abroad.
“The Japanese Nakamura machines are very reliable and we have a good relationship with ETG’s servicing and maintenance team to ensure that downtime is minimised, and any repairs are quickly addressed,” he adds.
Muller Holdings has recently secured the IATF 16949 quality accreditation, putting it in position to not only retain existing automotive work, but explore additional contracts, starting with £300,000 of new orders with Wabco and THK Germany.
For further information www.engtechgroup.com

Cannock-based Kenson Industrial Plastics has invested in a Tornos DT26 turning centre to help it machine spacers, rollers, washers, threaded gears, insulating pads and machine guarding from materials such as nylon, polyethylene, PVC, PTFE, PEEK and other plastics.

The four-employee company won a contract to manufacture gear motor components in batches of 10,000 per month, and this instigated the search for a new turning centre.
Managing director Kevin Hutcheson says: “The parts being machined are only 12 mm diameter. We looked at all the sliding-head suppliers, as well as a few other options, but the Tornos DT26 fitted our business perfectly. Other vendors recommended running neat oil, which is standard for sliding-head machines. However, Tornos said we could run the DT26 with either soluble or neat oil. As we machine plastic parts, we want to avoid staining from oil, or cleaning oil from plastic parts. Tornos had instantly tipped the scales in their favour.”
The machine instantly reduced the cycle time of the gear components (which are made of Ertalyte TX) from 50 to 25 seconds per part, taking more than seven days off the previous monthly production schedule. Additionally, the facility to work with and without the guide bush has reduced material consumption.
Historically, Kenson has only operated on a single eight-hour shift basis. However, the Tornos DT26 has been supplied with a
3 m barfeed and the Tornos Active Chip Breaker (ACB) system for lights-out machining. Referring to this, Hutcheson says: “We’ve only ever run day-shift machining, but now we have the Tornos and its ACB system, we can look at unmanned running.”
For further information www.tornos.com