TURNING CRITICAL CAPACITY
as recently as June 2018, supplied by
Citizen Machinery UK ( www.is.gd/X2aUTF ).
Operations director Phillip Taylor says
regular investment in new plant is key to
thriving in a competitive global marketplace
and he makes sure no machine tool stays
on the shop- oor for more than 10 years.
The company, which has 95 employees
and a £10 million annual turnover, derives
40 per cent of its business from the oil and
gas industry and is also a major supplier to
the high-voltage power sector, amongst
others.
Citizen Machinery UK is also the source
of four Cincom CNC sliding-head lathes
currently on site, which have been in use at
the Prescot factory since the mid-90s.
A dozen older models, which took over
from six times as many cam autos, have all
now been replaced. It leaves three 32 mm
capacity Cincom sliders installed since 2014
and a more recent 20 mm capacity model
that uses Citizen’s proprietary LFV
chipbreaking technology.
Taylor says: “90 per cent of our turnover
comes from producing precision turned
parts, many of which require a lot of
prismatic machining as well, so choice of
turn-mill centre is crucial to our success.
“We started to upgrade our xed-head
lathes by replacing them with Miyanos in
2018 in response to an upturn in demand,
which gathered pace at the beginning of this
year when we bought three more BNE-
51MSYs in the space of two months. The 51
mm bar capacity, twin-spindle turning centre
with its two 12-station live turrets, the upper
one with a Y-axis, is ideal for our needs.
“It is highly ef cient at balanced
machining of complex routines at both
spindles, so we can take chunks out of cycle
times, which are between 20 and 40 per
cent faster than on previous lathes. It meets
the increasing demand for the supply of high
added value parts at competitive prices.”
He adds the BNE-51MSY offers the
quickest TAKT times and was also much
better value for money than other options
considered. The lathes were also shown to
hold 20 microns total tolerance easily on
machined dimensions.
One reason for the lathe’s impressive
speed is Citizen’s superimposition control
technology, which allows the sub spindle to
track the upper turret for cutting reverse-end
features while the same turret is performing
front-end operations on bar at the main
spindle.
If the lower turret is operational at the
same time, three tools are in cut
simultaneously, delivering the performance
of a triple-turret lathe for a signi cantly lower
capital outlay.
CAPACITY CRUNCH
Suffolk-based Grayline Engineering Ltd has
turned to machine tool specialist Dugard
( https://is.gd/fhueZ9 ) once again, as it also
needed to invest in additional turning
capacity to meet demand and has added a
SMEC SL2000ASY turning centre with a
Hydrafeed 65 barfeed unit, complementing
the rm’s current Dugard 32 sliding
headstock machines.
The majority of work undertaken by the
Suffolk company generally comprises of
small dimension batch and production runs
of turned parts with a mix of larger parts in
small quantities.
The subcontract machine shop was
founded ve years ago and started out with
two Dugard 32 machines. As Dugard’s
previous sliding headstock CNC offering with
a twin spindle, twin-turret Y-axis con guration
with 11 driven tools and nine turning tools,
the machines have performed impeccably.
Managing director Graham Chattenton
says: “I spoke to engineers that I have
known as friends from many years and
asked them what machines they would
suggest. They give me a range of different
machines, but they all reported the same
thing with regards to the SMEC brand, it’s a
great machine that never goes wrong - and
as a small business, that is exactly what you
want; machines that never go wrong and are
extremely reliable. I bought the SMEC
SL2000ASY machine, I’ve had it for two
years and it has never missed a beat.”
From a speci cation perspective, the
Dugard SMEC SL2000ASY is sub-spindle
turning centre with Y-axis machining
capabilities. With a swing over bed of
650mm, a maximum machining diameter of
395mm and a maximum machining length of
450mm, this 8-inch chuck machine with a
Hydrafeed 65 bar feeding unit provides
exceptional rigidity, performance, capability
and exibility.
The machine works perfectly alongside its
existing Dugard 32 sliding head turning
centres. With a larger machining capacity
than the sliding head machines, the SMEC
SL2000ASY has a powerful 11/18.5kW
spindle motor with a maximum spindle
speed of 4500rpm and a 5.5/7.5kW spindle
motor on the sub-spindle.
Offering impressive material removal
rates with effective swarf removal from the
slant bed design; this is complemented by
the driven tooling unit on the SMEC
SL2000ASY that achieves a spindle speed
of 5000rpm from the 3.7/5.5kW continuous
live tooling motor.
See overleaf for Turning news and products
Grayline Engineering managing director Graham
Chattenton operating the new Dugard SL2000ASY
machine, which complements the fi rm’s existing
Dugard 32 sliding head turning centres
www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | February 2021 27
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