Product category:
Machine spindles and spindle attachments
News Release from: CTL Centreline | Subject: Heavy-duty right-angle milling head
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 27 June 2005
Heavy-duty head mills tough materials
A very heavy-duty, right-angle head weighing 750kg for a nuclear energy equipment manufacturer in the USA transmit 13kW of power at just 50 rev/min to machine tough metals.
Nine months after Coventry Engineering Group acquired gear-driven tooling manufacturer, Centreline, renaming it CTL Centreline, the latter business is on course to increase the group's turnover by 50%, as predicted by managing director, Rob Gordon The remaining business is generated by subsidiary company, Coventry Toolholders, which specialises in the manufacture of toolholders and hydraulic workholding equipment
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 13 Jul 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Several large and small projects won by CTL Centreline have helped to secure the survival of the business, which Gordon describes as a valued part of the UK's engineering heritage since the 1970s.
It was rescued from the abyss on 1st September 2004 when Centreline's intellectual property rights were purchased from the Administrators.
One of the larger recent orders was placed on CTL Centreline by Olympia Engineering, Toronto, for a very heavy-duty, right-angle head weighing 750kg for a nuclear energy equipment manufacturer in the USA.
Further reading
Milling head raises flange output four-fold
International manufacturer of wheels has achieved a four-fold increase in production efficiency using a bespoke, three-way, right-angle head to mill 40 flanges/h instead of 10/h.
Angle heads and speeders to be introduced
New and improved angle-heads and speeders will be unveiled at MACH 2004 alongside a range of multi-spindle drilling / tapping heads and rotary coolant adaptors for prismatic machining.
Two similar heads were supplied in 2002 and all are interchangeable between a number of Olympia horizontal boring machines supplied to the US customer.
The reason for the head being so heavy is that it is required to transmit 13kW of power at just 50 rev/min owing to the extreme toughness of the material being machined.
Speed ratio is 1:1, so the cutter rotates at the same speed as if it were in the machine tool spindle.
The head is 711mm long, as it is required to access internal apertures in the component, adding further to the weight of the tool.
Another feature of the head is that, once mounted in the 50-taper spindle of the machine, an indexing pin may be withdrawn and the head repositioned through 360 deg in 90 deg steps, allowing right-angle milling in four directions.
Automatic change of the tool into the 50-taper of the head is effected using hydraulics supplied by the host machine.
It is impossible to exchange the head itself automatically because of its large size, although ATC of smaller CTL Centreline heads is the norm.
Further orders have been placed in the UK by TRW, Honda and Spirax Sarco while in Europe, vehicle manufacturer Renault Dacia (Romania), Sopam (CTL Centreline's distributor in France), and companies in Scandinavia have all placed orders, as has a Singapore firm for two units.
Sales in the USA are also holding up well, as the long-standing sales subsidiary in McHenry, Illinois, has been retained.
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