A one-day seminar and open house on the manufacturing of gears will be held at NCMT’s Coventry technical centre and showroom on 9 July.

Various production methods will be demonstrated on Japanese-built Makino and Okuma machining centres, as well as on one of the latter’s multi-tasking turn-mill machines.
Methods covered will include hobbing, power skiving and ‘InvoMilling’, which is capable of producing different gears using the same standard machine platform. Gear grinding will also feature, involving the use of NCMT’s proprietary EasyGear grinding software. Wire-cut and die-sink production solutions demonstrated on Makino EDM equipment, will be among further highlights.
The main message during the event will be the flexibility, productivity and relatively low investment cost offered by producing external and internal gear types on five-axis machining centres, multi-tasking lathes and EDM machines, coupled with short lead-times, and high levels of accuracy and repeatability.
A further focus will be the inspection of gears to verify their accuracy. Measurement will be performed in-cycle via a touch probe on an Okuma Multus multi-tasking lathe, supported by off-line inspection on a Hexagon Metrology Leitz CMM equipped with Quindos software.
Completing the exhibits will be an automated system configured for gear-blank production based on an Okuma Genos L3000 lathe fitted with a Cellro robotic system for automatically loading billets and unloading components.
Proceedings will include guest speakers such as Dr David Curtis, senior technical fellow from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, and Dr Rob Frazer, head of the gear design unit at Newcastle University, who will be present on behalf of the British Gear Association.
For further information www.ncmt.co.uk