While CNC sliding head automatic lathes are still largely regarded as a niche area by the tooling companies, they have won a precision machinist some very good business for complex components.

Attention to detail has enabled specialist component machinist Paragon Precision to create very close relationships with customers' quality control departments. And this focus on quality is indeed reflected throughout the business - from the signage on the front of its modern 6,500 ft2 building to the way services are fed to its seven citizen cnc sliding-head mill/turn centres and fixed head CNC bar/chucking lathes. The company's name 'Paragon', defined as a 'model of excellence', truly portrays the attitude of this 15-man company in Redmoor, Milton Keynes, UK, where the three family directors - Paul Kratovil, managing director, his brother Mark, commercial director and John their father, now in semi-retirement but still very interested in the business as a strong team player - play a very 'hands-on' role in the company's day-to-day activities.

The objective set by John Kratovil for his two sons is to build the operation into a 20-machine site with the latest CNC technology, and judging by its growth of 75% between 2002 and 2003 plus another 50% during the last financial year, everything is well on course to achieve that.

Said John Kratovil: 'This company is our lifeblood, we are passionate about giving that little bit extra and it's paying-off.' And he quickly pointed to the benefits that attention to detail can bring: 'We have had a contract from a US defence customer for three years to produce very complex fibre optic components on our citizen machines to very strict tolerances and in difficult to machine material.

So far we have maintained a 100% quality rating and have never had a reject.

At a recent meeting with the customer, when the purchase director asked the quality manager if there were any problems in supply, he replied 'Yes, We don't purchase enough work from this company.' Paragon was set up in 1972 at Harpenden and moved to the new facility at Milton Keynes in early 2006.

The site has room to expand the production shop by a further 30% to enable new business to be accommodated as well as growth from existing customers from the aerospace, defence, marine, scientific, communications, medical, automotive and gardening equipment sectors.

Work batches tend to vary between 250 and 14,000 parts on a range of materials including aluminium, stainless steel, titanium, brass, copper alloy steels, mild steels, plastics and nylons.

Commenting on the number of Citizens installed Paul Kratovil maintained: 'NC Engineering's back up over the last eight years has been excellent.

We tend to concentrate on one supplier of a particular machine tool type and this is proving very rewarding on the shopfloor with common tooling, control knowledge and the ability of our setter operators to really exploit the methods used on the machine to achieve cycle time and quality.' Relationships are important to the Kratovils, who carry out a customer survey every six months.

What the directors are finding from this customer feedback is that quality departments are giving them a positive attitude for the future.

Said Mark Kratovil: 'Like most of our industry we were concerned over work going to China and India, so we have moved up market in the type of work we produce.

As a result, margins are improved and customer relationships are better.

We are now also finding work is coming back from the Far East because our customers do not want to be forced into larger batch runs to keep prices down - they are having problems with extended lead times and their quality departments are finding it very difficult to send parts back for rework because they are required for build.' On the commercial side, Paul Kratovil added: 'We have had no end of 'panic' orders because we have the skill and flexibility to capitalise on the flexibility of the Citizen machines and quickly reset to and produce smaller batches of parts that have been supplied wrongly from Eastern Europe and the Far East.

This capability is giving the customers time for the problems to be sorted out with the supplier without holding up assembly.' Paragon has seven Citizens, five L20-VII, one of the recent L20-VIIIs and two of the latest M32, 13-axis machines with programmable unload and CoolBlaster 2,000 lb/in2 high pressure coolant.

The first experience with Citizen was eight years ago and John Kratovil maintained: 'It is these machines that have been the mainstay of the growth of the business and we have continued to progressively buy new machines as our order book grows.' Each machine has its individual material racking and three to four jobs are issued to each machine at a time.

Programs are created either on the machine or off-line when they are fed by DNC using wireless technology.

A new NC Editor is currently being installed for the Citizens to further speed programming, but still Paul discusses all new jobs with the setters and is never slow at involving technical representatives from the main tooling suppliers.

'While sliding head technology is still largely regarded as a niche area by the tooling companies, they know their products,' said Paul Kratovil: 'We understand the machines and what we need to get from the application and this works very well.

It has won us some very good business either because of our capability to produce a complex component very cost-effectively or to maintain a customer when faced with 'cost-down' demands.'

CNC sliding head automatic mill/turn centre - of 20mm bar capacity and offering high metal removal rates - is available in left and right hand variants to enable factory layouts to be optimised.

Sliding head automatic sold as LH or RH lathe CNC sliding head automatic mill/turn centre - of 20mm bar capacity and offering high metal removal rates - is available in left and right hand variants to enable factory layouts to be optimised. The Citizen A20 CNC sliding head auto is the first in the company's line up of high performance turn/mill centres developed to require a lower capital outlay while being constructed to provide greater levels of rigidity and combine many of the proven features of its higher specification machines. For the first time this Citizen is available in left and right hand variants from NC Engineering of Watford to enable factory layouts to be optimised.

Developed around a heavier duty casting, approaching double the weight of a typical 20mm capacity machine, vibration absorption, higher metal removal rates and high levels of thermal displacement were prime design criteria for the new machine.

The Citizen A20 is able to carry up to 17 tools, three of which are driven.

It has a 3.7kW, 8,000 rev/min main spindle built to the same rigidity standards as the top of the range Citizen M32 sliding head turn/mill centre to facilitate heavier duty cutting cycles.

The 1.5kW, 8,000 rev/min back spindle shares common higher rigidity components with the main spindle, and both have in-built motors.

Operating cycles have the benefits of features such as constant surface speed, speed fluctuation detection, continuous thread cutting and are capable of simultaneous rigid tapping.

Citizen's streamline control technology in conjunction with the Fanuc based Series 32i-Model A control, has been incorporated following its success in cutting idle times in a machining cycle.

To aid machine program prove-out, Citizen's popular on-machine program check function is included enabling manual forward and reverse cycle or part cycle operation.

There are several tool layout options that can be specified as well as tool shank sizes and included as standard is the latest Sandvik Coromant QS quick-change tool system.

This exclusive breakthrough development by the tooling company and Citizen in Japan, that enables tools to be accurately changed in 20 secs and inserts indexed out of the confines of the cutting zones, is a major contributor to improved machine utilisation.

For longer components such as spools, valves and throttle spindles, up to 165mm lengths can be machined in a single chucking stroke which can be extended to 300mm with just a single re-chucking.

A component separator, able to handle parts up to 80mm in length is standard, with an option available to enable longer components to be manipulated.

GBP 25,000 has been slashed from annual cost of producing 1,000 steering shafts per month for a major international client since the supplier changed to a CNC turn-mill centre.

Steel shafts manufactured by Pailton Engineering, the international steering systems manufacturer, were previously produced in a cell comprising six machine tools - a saw, dedicated facing and centering machine, CNC lathe, spline rolling machine, gear hobber and a machining centre. Now the shafts are machined almost completely on a Star SV-32 sliding-head, 9-axis turn-milling centre, followed only by the gear hobber. The latter operation could be completed in-cycle on the Star, but it is more efficient for Pailton to produce the part in two hits in order to balance workflow and maximise utilisation of the sliding head auto.

According to operations manager, Neil Foster, valuable savings in cost and time have been achieved in the manufacture of this core product, which ends up in a large variety of bespoke steering columns.

Lead-time from order to delivery for a complete column assembly has been cut - sometimes to less than four weeks, including prototyping.

Most shafts are produced from 25mm diameter EN8 bar, batch sizes being relatively small at up to 3,000-off, as the columns are mainly for buses, trucks and off-road vehicles.

Typical shaft length is 300 to 500mm, although they can be over 1m long.

A specific project for which quantifiable savings are available was described by Steve George, cell leader at the Coventry, UK, factory.

A steering shaft for a major international client is made in two sections, both ends being completed in one hit on the Star SV-32 instead of on six machines.

Monthly batch size is 1000-off.

Floor-to-floor time for one end of the column has been cut from 86 to 20h, while the reduction at the other end was 79h down to 20h.

The time saving was a combination of having eliminated five set-ups as well as all inter-machine component handling, and having reduced the overall machining time.

The cycle time savings were a result of fast machine movements, and simultaneous front and reverse end working using both spindles, with two and sometimes three tools in cut simultaneously.

An impressive GBP 25,000 has been cut from the annual cost of machining these components, based on internal rates for shop floor staff.

The saving is large because six operators were previously needed to load and unload machines as well as to move the parts around the cell.

Now the process is virtually automatic on the Star, 24h/day, including 'lights-out' working overnight.

The CNC sliding head automatic lathe was installed in June 2005, since which time it has had a big impact on reducing production costs of a number of other, simpler components such as washers, threaded inserts and bushes.

The machine's capabilities have also prompted changes to the design of some components so that they may be machined more efficiently.

A good example is a new air column pin, which has been redesigned so that it can be manufactured at a rate of 130/h on the Star to within 10 microns total tolerance on some features.

A similar pin used to be produced at 40/h on a fixed-head lathe.

An instance where lights-out, sliding-head turning has shown an even larger improvement over fixed-head CNC turning is in the production of a pivot bush, whose production rate has gone up from 25 to 110/h.

The main source of this saving is the elimination of manual deburring and depipping, which is now completed in-cycle for free on the sliding head automatic.

Consistent with its philosophy of continuous improvement in terms quality and efficiency, Pailton's choice of a Star in preference to other makes of sliding-headstock lathe came down to the machine's weight, rigidity and high power, necessary for hobbing and spline rolling, as well as to the 310mm headstock stroke, more than on other machines, allowing long shafts to be produced faster.

Comparative trials demonstrated that the Star produced four times as many longer shafts per hour as the nearest competitor.

CNC automatic lathe builder, Tornos, has 're-branded' its machine tools to link the name of its new products with the degree of complexity of which they are capable.

As customers past and present will know, the Tornos brand naming has until now been based on product groups, namely the Deco A and S for single spindle turning centres and the MultiDeco B, C, D and I for multi-spindle turning machines. However, in a bold approach to simplify matters Tornos has decided to link the name of its new products with the degree of complexity of which they are capable. The new names will correspond to the following categories ; the Alpha range for complex to very complex parts, the Sigma range for parts of medium complexity and the Delta range for very simple parts.

It is important to note that these changes only affect new products launched in 2005.

Therefore, the Deco 8sp developed for the market segment of parts machined to medium complexity will be renamed the Deco Sigma 8.

All future machines, whether single or multi-spindle, falling into this category of complexity will automatically be named Sigma.

This also applies to the recently launched MultiDeco 20/8d.

Designed to produce complex parts, this machine will now have the new name of MultiAlpha 8x20.

Here too, any new machine developed for the production of complex parts will feature Alpha in its name.

Turning centres launched since 2005 will now receive name changes as referred to as shown below.

* DECO 8sp is now DECO Sigma 8.

DECO 20s is now DECO Sigma 20.

MultiDECO 32/6d is now MultiAlpha 6x32.

MultiDECO 20/8d is now MultiAlpha 8x20.

Global marketing manager for Tornos, Pierre-Yves Kohler commented: 'This is more than a change in name - it is a change in policy regarding the brand and company name.

We are not going to rename more than 5000 Deco and MultiDeco machines that are already installed.

We conducted an audit and are planning a review of our global corporate identity.

We want to reinforce our image as an innovator in the market - and thereby strengthen the position of Tornos.

The inevitable consequence of this decision is that the Tornos logo and brand name will be upgraded.

CNC sliding head turning centres can accommodate parts above the traditional 32mm diameter - up to 64mm providing considerably attractive enhanced capability and capacity.

The continued success of Macro CNC, the UK and Ireland subsidiary of Miyano machine tools has seen the company appoint Bewley and Co of Warrington as its new distributor for the North of England and Scotland. This appointment serves to strengthen the sales and service operations for the increasingly popular range of Miyano turning centres. Established in 1996, Bewley and Co has quickly become one of the UK's top suppliers of used sliding head automatic lathes.

However as Peter Bewley of Bewley and Co commented: 'Ten years on and our customers find that global competition now makes it necessary for them to produce larger, more complex parts from tougher and more exotic materials'.

'Customers are now producing components too large or too complex to be produced on traditional 'Swiss Type' automatic lathes.' To meet those needs Bewley and Co can now offer the latest range of Miyano CNC turning centres with capacities up to 64mm diameter.

'The Miyano turning centres can accommodate parts above the traditional 32mm diameter of sliding head machines.

This provides the customers with considerably enhanced capability and capacity and it proves an attractive proposition,' continued Bewley.

Since becoming the new agent for Macro CNC, success has been immediate with a Miyano BNJ-42SY 7axis fixed head turning centre recently being sold to BTMA member Swissmatic of Wishaw, Scotland.

As Swissmatic managing director Jim Corbally commented: 'The oldest machine we have is a Miyano BNC-12S.

The 12mm turning centre was bought in 1987 and has been running 24 hours a day, seven days a week for almost 20 years.

With that build quality and reliability as an endorsement, we immediately opted for a Miyano when we needed a new fixed head lathe.' Swissmatic manufactures high precision components for the electronics, telecommunications, computer, defence and aerospace industries, with the company currently witnessing an annual growth rate of 15%.

Operating on a 24/7 basis with a considerable growth rate, this demonstrates the company's need for additional capacity.

A capacity that will be further extended when Swissmatic order a second Miyano BNJ-42SY this autumn.

The company employs 16 people that operate 45 machines, 20 CNC machines with another 25 CAM operated machines.

These figures highlight the height of technology employed at Swissmatic.

Employing the latest CNC technology with magazine loading and conveyor off-loading, the company can cost effectively manufacture both small and large batches; batches that currently range from 30 to 3 million parts.

Swissmatic is dedicated to the principle of 'lights out' operations, and it is this principle combined with meeting the customers exacting demands that see the continued success at Swissmatic.

Corbally said: 'More customers continually require a wider variety of components.

To meet these needs we needed to extend our machining capability to cater for parts beyond the size capacity of our sliding head turning centres.

With a 42mm capacity, the Miyano was a natural choice.' The 7-axis Miyano BNJ-42SY will be used to manufacture a wide range of parts including complex connectors and connector housings from stainless steel, copper, brass, aluminium and numerous other materials.

Corbally continued: 'From feasibility studies, the Miyano BNJ-42SY is estimated to give us productivity improvements of up to 25%.

However, these are conservative estimates and I believe the Miyano will deliver improvements of anything up to 35-40%.' He added: 'The rotating guide bush in sliding head machines has difficulty supporting bar above 20mm diameter at high spindle speeds.

This is no problem with the Miyano fixed head machine and its exceptional rigidity for larger cuts provides productivity and surface finish improvements.

This is supported by an excellent swarf removal system with an integral swarf conveyor.' Corbally said: 'The potential to operate at higher speeds combined with the overlapping feature of the BNJ-42SY that allows simultaneous back and front end machining will enable us to manufacture the added value complex parts our customers require at remarkable speed.' The significantly improved processing speeds and capabilities provided to Swissmatic by the Miyano BNJ-42SY will be matched by the excellent service support from Macro CNC and Bewley and Co 'If we ever have any problems or queries with the Miyano machines, we will have an engineer on site to resolve our issues within hours.

Star Micronics GB, has created an opportunity for an applications engineering apprentice at its Melbourne, Derbyshire headquarters and has appointed Joe Whiteside, 18, to fill the vacancy.

Sliding-head lathe specialist, Star Micronics GB, has created an opportunity for an applications engineering apprentice at its Melbourne, Derbyshire headquarters and has appointed Joe whiteside, 18, to fill the vacancy. Joe was already known to the company, having recently taken an AVCE Engineering at nearby Chellaston School, during which he used the facilities at Star to help fulfil the practical part of the course, which was to design a water sprinkler and mill-turn the parts on a sliding-headstock lathe. Nevertheless, to benchmark Joe and approach the exercise even-handedly, managing director Bob Hunt contacted Training Services 2000, Derby, which recommend two further potential apprentices.

After careful evaluation, Joe was considered to be the best candidate.

One of the most difficult jobs Bob has had to do this year, he says, was to tell the other two that they did not quite make it, as they were both of very high calibre.

He said, 'There is already a shortage of production and applications engineers in the machine tool industry and that is likely to worsen in the next decade as skilled people retire.

'Over a third of our staff is applications-biased and the proportion is rising, as we see more and more opportunity to do that job for our customers, which are increasingly reluctant to take on production engineers and the associated overheads.

'We see our apprenticeship scheme as helping to put a little back into the industry by training engineers of the future, and we hope to take on a second young person next year in the service department'.

Joe whiteside added, 'Over the next three and a half years I will be studying on day release at Mackworth College, Derby, and taking a series of modules leading to a B.Tec and on to HNC level.

Star has said that it will sponsor me if I decide to go on to read for a degree.

'Being immersed in an engineering company will be of great help, as I shall be exposed to the latest technology, including machines, controls, tooling and materials.

I will also have the chance within the first year to shadow the sale of a lathe from order placement through applications and cutting trials to delivery and commissioning, learning all the way'.

Major new aerospace contract and capacity requirement initiates 3 machine Unicut order at NC Engineering open house.

Having just won a massive export aerospace contract from America and facing the running out of 20 mm turn/mill capacity at the Welwyn Garden precision machine shop, led Unicut Precision's directors and key employees to the NC Open House at Watford where a GBP250,000 order was placed for three citizen cnc sliding head autos. Says Jason Nicholson, Unicut's joint managing director: 'We had already checked the market for comparable machines but the capability of the Citizen for our type of work still cannot be matched'. 'This is proving a big advantage for us when quoting for new business and a major factor in winning this export contract that will involve three machines running around the clock'.

The sliding head machine order placed by Unicut was for two Citizen K16 VIIs and a L20 VIII.

Unicut Precision already has three of the latest generation Citizen L20-III machines, one installed in February 2006 and two in June 2005.

The company also has two of the previous generation L20 machines that are now four years old but gave a direct comparison on cycle time when using the same program to machine parts.

Joint managing director Charles Kenny points out that the new control and operational software immediately returned up to 30 per cent reduction in cycle times on some parts.

'The roll-on effect has been to improve our productivity and especially our competitiveness that has enabled us to secure new business - hence the need for another L20 machine,' he said.

The Citizen L20-III with main and subspindle can carry up to 21 tools of which nine can be driven.

The machine can cut with two tools simultaneously which, with the new software and control system is able to reduce idle time by some 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, the latest servo control technology, giving a torque improvement of almost a third, enables cutting times to be significantly reduced.

The two K16 machines with 19 tools and eight driven tools are able to produce parts, like the L20 with two tools simultaneously.

This was an important contributor to Unicut winning the US contract for machining the components made from special steel.

Over the last five years Unicut Precision has installed 21 new machines of which 16 have been Citizen.

The company policy is to maintain a plant list of equipment that is under five years to continuously improve competitiveness, maximise return on the investment and maintain high spindle utilisation while running around the clock.

The company now has its biggest ever order book, up by more than 25 per cent over last year's record trading and is currently recruiting two additional machine setters to fulfil the contract requirements.

While the focus of attention in British manufacturing continues to be the loss of work to off-shore locations, particularly the Far East, 600 Group remains committed to manufacturing in the UK.

While the focus of attention in British manufacturing continues to be the loss of work to off-shore locations, particularly the Far East, 600 Group remains committed to manufacturing in the UK. The Group is presently half way through a multi-million pound investment programme in its manufacturing plants designed to ensure that each is able to remain at the forefront of its market with competitively priced, high technology products. Recent investment has been concentrated at three of the Group's six UK manufacturing plants, Gamet Bearings in Colchester, Crawford Collets and Pratt Burnerd International in Halifax, and Colchester and Harrison Lathes in Heckmondwike (near Leeds).

Group Chief Executive Dr Tony Sweeten said 'We are a British company.

We are committed to British engineering and to manufacturing in Britain.

The Group has always been part of the manufacturing industry and has grown within it, root and branch.

We survive and thrive because both the Group and the individual companies within it have a commitment to remaining at the forefront of industry by constantly seeking to improve and enhance our products and fine tune them to meet the foreseeable demands of our customers.

To put that philosophy into practice we must invest not only in constant research and development and in skilled men but also in the machines, equipment, manufacturing practices and buildings.

We aim to be the best at everything we do and are actively in pursuit of that goal using all means available to us'.

Current focus of investment is at Colchester and Harrison lathes.

A new Manufacturing Director, Andy Higgins, has joined from the aerospace industry with the specific task of introducing an innovative production system designed to minimise lead times, minimise manufacturing overheads, and ensure technological innovations are easy to implement.

The new system is based primarily on a close-coupling manufacturing system, which pulls machines through the production system rather than MRP, which pushes a machine through.

Employee empowerment is a major element within the system, with the team leader in each section and the men working within it responsible for maintaining and improving the build programme as well as, predictably, build quality.

Bought-in parts, from small items such as nuts and bolts through to major machine parts like chucks and ballscrews, are controlled to ensure immediate availability while eliminating the 'stores' mindset.

Currently, the plant is being reorganised and up-graded, with completion due before Christmas.

Andy said 'This represents a substantial investment, with new plant being installed and the building itself being upgraded but perhaps the most significant investment has been in training.

When we initiated the new production system, we were committed to at least maintaining the existing workforce.

Everyone was actively involved in analysing the status quo and identifying where improvements could be made but, perhaps more importantly, in assessing skills levels and increasing them so that each employee becomes multi-skilled and able to undertake a wide range of work within the plant'.

The latest investment in Colchester and Harrison Lathes follows the œ3 million invested in new plant and equipment, up-graded machines and a new precision grinding facility last year at Crawford Collets and Pratt Burnerd International.

Coincidental with the investment at the workholding manufacturing plant was an investment of almost a million at the Gamet Bearings plant in Colchester, where new machines were installed.

Dr Sweeten said 'We have six manufacturing sites in the UK, one in Heckmondwike (for lathes), one in Colchester (for high precision bearings), three in Halifax (for workholding, fabrications and control systems) and one in Letchworth (for industrial lasers and laser marking systems).

Innovation is the key to their continuing success, and to maintain that needs investment.

Heart, mind - and wallet - we are committed to manufacturing in Britain.

We know that, thanks to the investment we are making and will continue to make in our UK plants, we can compete effectively with any other company any where in the world, can remain at the forefront of manufacturing world-wide, can prosper and thrive.

We hope that other British manufacturers will, like us, appreciate that Britain can be the powerhouse if we commit, if we strive, if we invest'.

600 Group is reporting excellent results from the IMTS show in Chicago.

The 600 Group is reporting excellent results from the IMTS show in Chicago. Three Group companies - Clausing Industrial Inc, Pratt Burnerd America, and Electrox (USA) - all had stands at the show. In addition, Harrison Lathes was also represented on the stand of its distributor REM Sales.

Across the range of Group products, which extends from high technology laser marking machines to lathes, machining centres, and workholding equipment, both the quality and the quantity of enquiries were significantly improved upon the last show.

Group Chief Executive Tony Sweeten said 'It was a lively, buoyant show with serious customers thronging the aisles.

At times, it was almost impossible to walk on to the stands for potential customers showing a serious interest in the machines - for instance we sold 5 Harrison Alpha lathes during the show to new customers.

We believe that the American market is now a vigorous market and one in which our companies are well placed to take full advantage.

As a Group, we concentrate on two things - continual investment in improved performance and research which leads to innovation.

As a result, we have even shorter lead times than we were able to offer at the last show and machine tools and ancillary equipment which have been fine tuned to suit the needs of the customer both now and for the foreseeable future'.

The new Colchester Tornado CNC lathe, which was launched to the US market at the show by Clausing, received great acclaim.

Well suited to the market with both 3 and 5 axis versions, the lathes attracted significant attention and many serious enquiries.

Several Multiturns and many standard Colchesters were also sold during the show and very many orders received.

Clausing, which sells a balanced combination of Colchester lathes, own-manufacture machines (including the popular Richmond machining centre) and machines imported from elsewhere, offers virtually a one-stop shop to the production engineer.

President of the company, Bill Nancarrow said 'This show was up-beat, and was a clear indication that the American market is continuing to pick up well.

The atmosphere was confident and the general mood one of creating further successes by investing in the appropriate machine tools.

At Clausing we are able to offer the most appropriate technology to each individual customer.

In particular, the new five axis Tornado attracted substantial interest and we have many enquiries which we expect to convert to orders in the immediate future.

The three-axis Tornado was also very well received and we are expecting good orders for this machine too.

The new design clearly has strong appeal to the market: we even had distributors approaching us for the opportunity to sell it, a further indication of its potential.

All year we have been finding order levels increasing across the range of industries - general engineering, sub-contractors, medical engineering, aerospace and government industries - and the show seems to have capitalized on the belief that the economic climate is improving and will continue to do so'.

In addition to the success which Clausing enjoyed, a number of orders and many enquiries were received by 600 Machine Tools (the Group's company in Canada) and REM Sales was delighted with the sales and quality of enquiries it achieved.

Pratt Burnerd America, which was launching the new Programmable power chuck and the Self-Contained Power Chuck, doubled the enquiry level compared with the last IMTS and Electrox USA was so inundated with enquiries that after the first day it was forced to bring several additional staff onto the stand to cope with the volume of potential customers.

The mid-range Tornado 220, from Colchester is 20% lower in price than the Tornado 210 version, is some 50 per cent heavier and provides a 25 per cent improvement in its damping characteristics.

The mid-range Tornado 220, from Colchester is 20 per cent lower in price than the Tornado 210 version it replaces, is some 50 per cent heavier and provides a 25 per cent improvement in its damping characteristics. The price to performance ratio has been a prime factor in Tornado's success and Colchester's introduction of the second generation of a true 60 degrees slant bed machine brings a larger capacity and power rating. The machine is faster, more rigid with a stiffer five bearing spindle design and well able to provide a consistent turning operation from part to part.

While being available in chucking and bar configurations, the introduction of the 'Lights Out' machining package gives higher user productivity with extended unattended running.

Now used across the CNC range, Colchester's development of the patented 'Duo-Stable' construction incorporating an engineered concrete polymer base fill, sealed to resist the ingress of moisture, is key to the stability and high performance of the machine.

The base makes use of strategic reinforcement while a network of ribs and inserts create an equilibrium within the structure to provide unmatched consistency of operation.

To the user, it provides the foundation for more aggressive turning cycles, maintenance of high tolerance, finer surface finish and extended tool life.

The base foundation interacts with the structure of the 60o cast iron slant bed with the added advantage of larger and heavier ways that contribute to the generation of improved static and dynamic stiffness and unrivalled thermal stability.

The 'Duo-Stable' construction creates a machine that has a predictable and slow reaction to changes in ambient and cutting temperatures and under normal operating conditions should attain stable running within 10 minutes of start-up.

This level of thermal engineering by Colchester is unheard of in the 'price competitive' lathe sector.

In addition, the added stiffness of the structure is able to accommodate more powerful and higher torque motors.

Higher specification drives are also included for spindles and axis motion with quicker turret indexing taking just 0.3 secs.

As part of the design improvements to the Tornado 220, the cross-slide assembly is more dynamic and 'squat' using linear ways in place of the previous dovetail design.

A new X-axis ballscrew design contributes to improved accuracy.

And, consistent with the Colchester philosophy, high specification propriety equipment complement the basic turning platform.

As part of the thermally balanced design, the size of the hydraulic tank is now doubled giving improved radiator effect from the increase in surface area, improved thermal hystersis, better oil flow and a larger pump.

The hydraulic tank is sited at the front of the machine with the coolant tank located at the opposite end which further improves thermal effects.

The coolant tank position also makes maintenance and swarf removal easier.

Because grease lubrication replaces oil, tramp oil is now eliminated which extends coolant life, prevents odour, improves tool life and machining consistency while being more environmentally friendly.

In the Tornado 220 the maximum turned diameter is 260mm by 540mm turned length.

Rapid traverses are increased to 25m/min in X and 30m/min in Z.

A new design of heavy duty cast iron headstock is connected to a 22kW, AC Fanuc Alpha motor with a maximum speed of 3,500 revs/min.

In the high speed version maximum spindle speed is 5,000 revs/min.

The new 12 station turret design is based on VDI 40 tooling system.

Chuck size is 210mm with a 254mm option and bar capacity is 65mm.

The Tornado 220 can also be specified with the fully integrated Colchester designed MBF 1000 bar feed which is programmed and operated directly from the machine's GE-Fanuc 21i TB control system.

This system also forms the nucleus of the Colchester 'Lights Out' package which includes swarf conveyor, Renishaw system based in-process gauging and tool monitoring utilising axis torque load to initiate sister tool replacement.

One of the world's most respected names in the design and manufacture of competition motorcycle equipment has opted for machine tools supplied by Mazak.

One of the world's most respected names in the design and manufacture of competition motorcycle equipment has opted for machine tools supplied by Mazak to operate at the core of its manufacturing operations. Bredbury, Stockport based Renthal Limited has an extensive product range embracing handlebars, front and rear chainwheels, chainwheel assemblies, chains, grips and a range of handle bar fittings designed for a cross section of high performance motor cycles. The company undertakes all design and manufacturing in-house and has recently purchased two Mazak Quickturn 10, 2 axis lathes with 6in diameter chucks, a Super Quickturn 200M turning centre with driven tooling and its most recent addition, an FJV 250 vertical machining centre with two pallet changer and large 1.2m x 0.5m table.

This re-equipping was necessary after a devastating fire in the Autumn of 2000 which destroyed Renthal's factory and over 100 older machine tools.

'The fact that we have re-equipped with Mazak machine tools for our manufacturing operations is testimony to the quality and capability of Mazak equipment,' explains co-founder and joint managing director Andrew Renshaw.

Renthal has over 100 World and 60 USA titles to its credit in categories ranging from Supercross, Enduro, Trials, Superbikes and Motocross and is a significant exporter with 88% of the output destined for 32 overseas markets.

As well as supplying the enthusiast and replacement market, Renthal is also an O/E supplier of key components - chainwheels, handle bars and fittings - to various Honda works teams.

The company specialises in manufacturing replacement components that offer higher performance characteristics coupled with the lighter weights and durability necessary for competition racing.

One of its innovation's is a replacement one-piece chainwheel carrier specifically designed for Ducati 916 and 748 bikes.

In competition environments where it may be necessary to change gearing at the last minute before a race, the carrier eliminates the need for time consuming rear wheel removal when changing the chainwheel - a process not possible with the original Ducati chainwheel design.

'We have a reputation for innovation and the very highest standards of component manufacture and that is reflected in our choice of machine tools,' continues Andrew Renshaw.

'We purchased out first Mazak turning centre in 1989 at an auction and it proved a real workhorse as our business grew.

More recently we had added a number of machining centres and it was not only the quality of manufacture that impressed but also the ease of programming via the Mazatrol Fusion controllers.

'After the fire, the Fusion controller's came into their own because, being in a Windows environment, the ease of translating and downloading the thousands of machining programmes was so straight-forward, much easier than other systems supplied with competitor's machine tools.

Because we have some 10,000 separate products that require turning, milling or drilling, what would appear a daunting task in programming the machines was actually more a case of plug-in and go,' he explains.

The Mazak FJV 250 vertical machining centre was commissioned early in October and will be dedicated to the drilling and milling of front and rear chain wheels.

The Quickturn machines are primarily involved in turning high precision gearbox sprockets - usually in EN36 - but there is also some turning necessary on the handlebar sets.

Batch quantities can vary from 50 to 5,000 and it is because of this batch variance that Andrew Renshaw is so enthusiastic about the Fusion controller.

'We get called upon to manufacture small quantities or short runs of components which often necessitate a modification to the design.