When McGreevy Engineering made a strategic decision to move into the aerospace industry, the company realised it needed to take its first step into five-axis machining. The machine of choice was a Vcenter AX800 from Victor CNC.
Works manager Tommy Hanna says: “The reason we bought the AX800 was because it has a bigger capacity than most of its competitors, with 1.6 m in the X-axis. This capacity allows us to use it as a large-bed three-axis machine, as well as a versatile five-axis. The machine also has a 15,000 rpm spindle, which means we are conducting high-speed machining on a lot of our work. Providing jobs are set-up correctly, we can hit all five sides of the workpiece at high speed, which is making a huge saving for our business.”

The company has a variety of three-axis machining centres, but with the five-axis AX800 McGreevy needed more tool positions, as Hanna recalls: “Obviously, with five-axis we need more tool stations to hit the job from all directions, and the AX800 has 40 tool positions.”
The machine installed at McGreevy was specified with the through-coolant facility and swarf conveyor system, which supports large-capacity machining, as Hanna explains: “With 700 mm in the Y axis and 1600 mm in the X axis, plus the 800 mm rotary table, we can machine some particularly large parts. This is especially the case with the rotary table as we can machine one side of a long part and then rotate it to do the other side.”
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