Profit boosters
Fish farm parts output upped with Bridgeport Hardinge; wheelchair user tech made faster and
better on XYZ Machine Tools’ equipment; biosciences equipment expert benefits from 5-axis Spinner
Channing Engineering, which employs
eight people at its workshop in the
village of Pinchbeck, Spalding, Linc,
is supporting its fish farming-related product
manufacturing activities with the help of
machinery supplied by Engineering
Technology Group (ETG, https://is.gd/ulufay).
Run by Colin Channing, the company
makes parts that are in high demand for fish
farming businesses in Norway, the Faroe
Islands and in Canada. As a result, more
than half of its work is now exported, with all
main destinations outside the EU.
Fish farming has seen huge growth in
recent years, with Channing Engineering a
beneficiary. A one-off job a decade and a
half ago has turned into a major stream of
business for the company. And with
business continuing to grow, due to its
reputation for quality and reliability, Colin
Channing and his team decided to replace
one of the company’s Bridgeport machining
centres, purchasing a new Hardinge GX710S
from ETG.
Says managing director Channing:
“The previous machine was a highly reliable
piece of kit, so it made sense to get another
Bridgeport. It has been a while since we’ve
had to replace a piece of equipment and it
was the first time we had worked with ETG.
Everything went very smoothly and, when any
issues did crop up, we received a rapid
response, which is just what you want with a
significant investment.”
The Bridgeport Hardinge GX710S is a
3-axis vertical machining centre with 20
tools held in an ATC carousel, spindle speed
is up to 12,000 rpm, table size is 800 by
400 mm and X, Y and Z travels are 710,
400 and 430 mm, respectively. Siemens
control with ShopMill is fitted.
Adds Channing: “We are very busy at the
moment, with most of our work involving
short runs of a few dozen parts off at a time,
or one-off prototyping. Whilst we cover a
wide range of different industries, including
MACHINING CENTRES SUPERIOR SPINDLES DELIVER
components for racing cars, fish farming
equipment is still the biggest single source
of work for us. The first piece of work we
got, probably 15 years ago now, was for
Norway and we found we were quoting £100
a piece less than the other firms they were
talking to.
“We now make our own version of some
components and, as an industry, it now
accounts for around 60% of our workload,
supplying customers in Norway, the Faroe
Islands and Canada. It has just snowballed.
“And there’s no sign of a slowdown. Fish
farming has been the fastest growing sector
of the food industry for the last two
decades, and global farmed fish
production is expected to expand by a
third by 2026.”
Starting out as an intended parttime
business in 1996, Mounts and
More quickly morphed from being a
small distributor of products for
wheelchair users into a
service and support centre for not only
individual users but also hospital groups
across the UK and Europe. The company is
building its capacity further on vertical
machining centres supplied by XYZ Machine
Tools (https://is.gd/kufaha).
Director Ian Bullock explains that he
started out as the ‘middle-man’, developing
his own ideas that he initially passed
straight back to Daessy, the Canada-based
supplier of the equipment he was selling.
He says: “As part of that agreement, we
were precluded from selling other products,
but they gave us their blessing, and at times
support, to start designing and making our
own accessories and custom parts to
complement the Daessy
mounting system. As many of
these designs were unique to
Channing Engineering
selected Bridgeport
when expanding
capacity
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