LEICESTER SUBCONTRACTOR SAYS SLIDER IS TWICE AS FAST AS FIXED-HEAD LATHES

Robert Suffolk, Managing Director, commented, “Cutting trials on some of our steel components up to 32 mm diameter showed a halving of cycle times compared with our fixed-head, single-spindle mill-turning centres.”

He explained that his company produces parts for Caterpillar in high volumes, such as spacers and threaded rods, some of which are produced outside by sliding-head specialists. Bringing the work in-house will save on subcontract machining costs and give Direct Engineering better control over quality and delivery times.

Asked why he chose a Star slider in preference to other makes, Mr Suffolk pointed to discussions with a number of UK users of the lathes. He said, “There were no bad comments about Star with regard to the performance of the machines, and back-up was considered reliable by everyone we spoke to.”

The order from Direct Engineering was one of four, valued at more than £400,000, taken on the Star GB stand during the show. Managing director Bob Hunt said, “This was a pleasing result considering the continued economic uncertainty, although I have to admit that we were hoping for a higher number.

“There were, however, a lot of positive enquiries that our sales engineers can target during the summer months and through to the year end.

He went on to say that many manufacturers and subcontractors are profiting by adopting sliding-head mill-turning. Potential users broadly fall into two categories – cam auto users looking for greater accuracy and one-hit machining to reduce labour costs; and fixed-head CNC lathe users like Direct Engineering that have begun to realise that sliding-head cycles can be much faster.

This applies to short as well as long parts, including those where the proportion of prismatic machining is high, even to the point where there is hardly any turning at all.

Following the world premiere at MACH 2010 of the 12-axis CNC ST-38 for machining parts up to a nominal diameter of 38 mm – the previous maximum bar diameter having been 32 mm – the range of sliding-head applications is set to increase further.

Mr Hunt said that visitors to the stand were quick to realise that with up to 60 cutters in the working area, the machine can attack unproductive time by minimising or even eliminating the need for tool changes between batches.