The installation of five more Cincom CNC sliding-head turning centres from Citizen Machinery at Renishaw raises the metrology equipment producer’s tally of lathes from this supplier to 58. Renishaw’s annual output of components from the machines exceeds 2.5 million.

Three of the latest 12 mm capacity Cincom B12 lathes fitted with Iemca Elite 112 bar magazines were installed at Renishaw’s Miskin plant in Wales, where 20 Citizen sliding-head turn-mill centres are already in use. The other two went to the company’s Stonehouse factory in Gloucestershire.
Robert Horsley, senior production engineer, says: “This latest investment in Citizen lathes, which raised the number we use by nearly 10%, was driven by increased demand for our measurement technology. The B12 lathes are mainly used for turning and milling 303 stainless steel bar to manufacture styli and other probe components. We normally produce a month’s worth for stock, which can be anything from 1200- to 30,000-off, before we change over a machine to start a new batch. Run times are at least eight hours.
A number of different materials are processed, ranging from mild, stainless, carbon and low-alloy steels, through brass and aluminium, to corrosion-resistant copper-nickel-zinc alloys. According to Horsley, all of the lathes hold tolerances down to ±20 µm parallelism and squareness, and ±50 µm on milled features. Surface finish down to Ra 0.4 is easily achievable, doing away with the need to cylindrically grind cosmetic features.
Head of communications for Renishaw, Chris Pockett, says: “We have standardised on Citizen sliding-head turning machines since the 1980s, when the company demonstrated what, at the time, was ground-breaking technology. The commonality of lathe layout ensures ease of training and complete flexibility for our production engineering staff to develop processes and program any machine.”
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk