PDJ Vibro Ltd

PDJ Vibro at MACH this year will focus on the depth of experience and expertise it offers to customers. Now in its second generation and run by managing and technical directors David and Paul Hurley respectively, the company was established in 1983 by their father John, the current chairman. With an eye to succession, passing this knowledge down to David's son Tom and Paul's two sons, James and Adam, and acclimatising them to the world of manufacturing will form an important part of the event.

Weapons manufactured by London firm, Leon Paul Equipment are used by many fencers around the world, including winners at last year’s Olympic Games in Rio. What many of them may not realise is the level of expertise that goes into ensuring that the foils, epees and sabres are finished to a very high standard. To this end, a focus on deburring and surface treatment has seen two more vibratory machines installed in the factory by Bletchley-based supplier, PDJ Vibro.

A new manufacturing cell has been installed by Peterborough subcontractor Westcombe Engineering to produce increased quantities of a family of aluminium engine components for Perkins Engines. It comprises a Haas ST-30 CNC lathe with short bar feeder, a Blast Wash top-loading washing machine and a vibratory bowl finishing machine from PDJ Vibro, the second to be installed in the factory.

Promoting its range of new and refurbished bowls, barrels and high energy centrifugal equipment, PDJ Vibro also have the range of consumables on offer and the company’s repair and subcontract finishing services. They ensure that deburring, descaling, edge breaking, surface finishing and superfinishing of components is carried out automatically to a high degree of repeatability that is unattainable when processing by hand.

Presenting the two sides of its business at Advanced Engineering UK is PDJ Vibro, one being the new and used finishing machine sales activities, and the other is its contract finishing service. Both are designed to make life simpler for manufacturers that want to minimise manual work and move towards automating the finishing process for health and safety reasons and to improve consistency.

The aerospace engineering sector’s high-end manufacturing solutions are provided by Bowmill Engineering from several factory units on the Nuffield Industrial Estate in Poole. In the finishing and assembly department, machined parts are deburred carefully using a variety of finishing practices. In April 2016, the company decided to augment these by installing a PDJ Vibro EVT-320 vibratory trough alongside its existing vibratory bowl machine, which was at full capacity.

Having installed a 120-litre capacity vibratory finishing bowl from PDJ Vibro in January of this year, Rob Bennett, director of subcontract CNC machinists, Scot Bennett Engineering Limited, decided in May that he had ordered a machine of less than optimal specification. At the outset he had not appreciated the value of having automatic separation of finished components from the abrasive medium when processing is complete.  

Digits2Widgets has enhanced its range of surface finishing services with the recent installation of a vibratory finishing machine from PDJ Vibro. The new machine is dedicated to the high quality polishing of Nylon SLS parts and produces a very smooth, ivory-like finish.