Product category:
CNC turning centres, mill/turning, multi-tasking centres, horizontal and VTLs.
News Release from: Colchester-Harrison | Subject: Tornado T8MSY mill/turn centre
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 April 2007
Mill/turn centre combines three ops into
one
Mill/turn centre can machine off-centre features, keyways, flats and contoured milled surfaces as well as perform helical milling and has combined thee operations into one.
Not only have machining times been decimated and up to three previous operations combined into a single cycle by the latest Colchester-Harrison Tornado T8MSY mill/turn centre at Hagon Products, but, the company has also made very effective use of the machine's subspindle and Y-axis turret cross-feed to produce off-centre features, keyways, flats and contoured milled surfaces as well as perform helical milling Established in 1958 by England international speedway rider Alf Hagon, Hagon Products has become a world renowned specialist producer of motorcycle shock absorbers
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 5 Jul 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Based in Hainault, Essex, UK, the company produces some 45,000 shock absorbers a year and recently upgraded production from an 11-year-old Colchester Tornado 100 to the high specification T8MSY to produce larger variants of the Monoshock range of shock absorber bodies.
Said Brian Green, production manager: "There was nothing wrong with the Tornado 100 but we needed a larger capacity 65mm machine and started looking at turning centres with driven tools.
However, through Colchester Lathe's Southern Technical Centre at RK International of Erith, we were demonstrated the advantages of subspindle and cross-feed turret machining, and it became very clear that this GBP 80,000 Colchester was ideal for the type of work we had to do.
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In addition to the specification, we felt it would give very good performance for a very competitively priced investment." Indeed, he maintained: "The advantage of the Tornado's Duo-Stable bed construction becomes clear when you start turning 63 HRc induction-hardened piston rods and obtain a perfect surface finish.
As many of our shock absorbers are sold into the aftermarket as replacement components, cosmetic appearance is very important and helps confirm to the customer that he is paying for a quality product." For many years Hagon Products enjoyed considerable success manufacturing speedway and grass track racing chassis and engine parts from its original premises in Leyton, East London.
However, when one of the company's suppliers, Girling Shock Absorbers ceased production in 1985, Hagon opted to acquire the tooling for the entire product range and set up Hagon Products to make its own range of shock absorbers.
Such was the success of this incidental venture, that it soon became the company's core business.
A move to bigger premises in Hainault ensued in 1995 as demand increased, and this shift of production led to the investment in its first CNC lathe, the Tornado 100.
When looking for a solution for its increase in turning capacity, Green initially looked at C-axis and driven tooling, then a sub-spindle machine, but it became difficult to find a machine with a larger-than-standard subspindle capacity.
Unconvinced by other machine supplier's promising to meet this requirement, the company turned its attention to the Colchester-Harrison Tornado T8MSY and, through RK International, found that not only could the subspindle of the UK-manufactured Tornado be modified to accept diameters up to 45mm, but also that the Y-axis option offering an off-centreline travel of +/-40mm proved irresistible in the future production plans.
Explained Green: "There were other advantages, too.
The Tornado's 12-station, all-driven 3.7kW, 5,000 rev/min VDI turret meant all our existing tooling was compatible, as were many of our part programs to the Fanuc control.
Moreover, the visibility into the working area far surpassed any other machines we considered.
Everything about the machine was positive to us - from the large parts-catcher through to the working height and tooling layout." The Tornado T8MSY, 6-axis turning centre features a main spindle drive of 22kW and 5,000 rev/min and a sub-spindle of 7.5kW and 6,000 rev/min.
Both have full C-axis and disc brakes to maintain spindle positioning when machining off-centre.
By transferring components 'on-the-fly' from the main to the subspindle, additional turning and milling operations can be completed to finish the job in a single cycle.
In addition, the 40mm Y-axis travel each side of the machine centreline allows Hagon setters to take full advantage of the machine's milling capability and rigidity.
The Tornado T8MSY with 1.5m IEMCA barfeed was immediately set to work producing a multitude of complex parts and quickly registered payback by reducing operations, cycle times, handling time and significantly cutting work-in-progress.
For instance, a shock absorber end fitting made from aluminium for a BMW Monoshock motorcycle, was previously produced in three operations using a CNC lathe and vertical machining centre.
Today this part is completed in a single cycle taking less than five minutes.
After feeding the material out, the part is initially rough turned.
Using the Y-axis turret, a large hole is produced using helical interpolation with an 18mm endmill.
The component is re-fed further out and a profile taper is produced on the main shank before the part is transferred to the subspindle where the other end is turned, a cross-hole machined and internal features produced.
Higher volume parts produced include stainless steel Monoshock tube bodies.
These are machined in a multitude of different lengths between 100mm and 300mm with differing internal and external thread positions.
Before the Tornado/barfeed package was installed, each body was cut on a bandsaw and turned individually - in batches of 2,000 parts.
Now the process is continuous, with each thin-walled body being machined complete on the Tornado, including in-cycle deburring.
Hagon Products manufactures shock absorbers for a vast range of motorcycles, including marques such as BMW, BSA, Ducati, Enfield, Harley, Honda, Kawasaki, Matchless, Moto Guzzi, MZ, Norton, Suzuki, Triumph, Velocette, Vespa and Yamaha.
The company's pedigree in motorcycles is exemplified by its retired founder, Alf Hagon, who can boast a most remarkable racing career.
After clocking up no less than 11 national grass track titles, in the 1960s he turned to sprinting and racing V-Twin drag bikes dominated in the early years by Vincents, JAPs and Harley Davidson.
From 1964 to 1969 Hagon raced a 1260cc Shorrocks supercharged V-Twin JAP that he designed, developed and built himself, and in 1967 he became the first British rider to dip under 10s (9.93) over the legendary quarter-mile Santa Pod Raceway in Northamptonshire.
Initially the bike ran a two-speed Norton gearbox before adopting a single-speed countershaft set-up.
In 1968, using a three-speed gearbox, he had a crack at the UK speed record at the RAF Honington air base in Suffolk and even facing a number of problems, he became the first British rider to break the 200 mile/h record with an astonishing 206.54 mile/h.
But motorcycles are not the whole story at Hagon Products.
The company has diversified to supply shock absorbers for use on electric mobility vehicles, industrial washing machines and green-keeping machinery.
Additionally, the firm has developed a speciality in building wheels for motorcycles, a discipline that now accounts for approximately 10% of business.
Admitted Green: "We are certainly facing competition from Asia but our strength is in the breadth of our range".
"We don't just manufacture shock absorbers for the popular models, and with our investment in production such as the Tornado, we can cost-effectively handle quantities of between five and 10 a year".
"We never know what we will be making from one week to the next so this resource with the ability to combine operations has made an invaluable difference to our business." The T8MSY operates non-stop across a single day shift producing hundreds of different parts including mounting loops, end adjustors, bushes and adjustor rods.
Tolerances are typically in the realm of 0.1 - 0.2mm, although certain features are tied up to +/-0.01mm.
The machine, which features 30m/min rapid traverse to all linear axes, is programmed off-line using Colchester's ColCAM programming software, a system described as 'a very useful tool' by Green.
"Any component that features special shapes or contours is made painless to program using ColCAM," he said.
"The total package of turning centre, Fanuc 18i-TB CNC control, barfeed and programming software has proven that making the right decision can make such a difference to the business.".
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