Product category:
Subcontract machining and assembly services
News Release from: H C Holifield (Oxford) | Subject: Producing complex machined wall plaques
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 June 2004
Complex Royal Warrants machined and
finished
Any experienced production engineer glancing up at wall-mounted Royal warrant plaques machined from bronze plate will recognise the enormous amount of fine-detail milling involved.
Asprey, purveyors of jewellery, goldware and silverware to the Royal family, opened its extended and renovated flagship London store on 5th May 2004, giving customers the opportunity to buy other products including watches and pens, silk, rare books, china and crystal, ready-to-wear clothing, shoes and fashion accessories Any experienced production engineer glancing up at the wall-mounted Royal warrant plaques machined from bronze plate will immediately recognise the enormous amount of fine-detail milling that has gone into their manufacture
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 3 Dec 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Abingdon-based Holifields was the contract machinist chosen to supply the three warrants for the Queen, Prince of Wales and Queen Mother (to be retained for five years from the date of her death), partly due to the contract machinist's CNC water-jet cutting facility which was needed to profile around the outside of the plaques.
First, however, each 300mm square bronze plate underwent an engraving cycle ranging from 24 to 40 hours using a 1mm carbide end mill.
A vertical machining centre with data server was employed due to the large size of the programs; the smallest, for the Prince of Wales Coat of Arms, comprised 36,000 lines of data.
The order was placed on Holifields by celebrated architects, Foster and Partners, which designed The Asprey New Bond Street extension.
A profiled and milled aluminium sample was produced initially which met the required quality standards.
Foster and Partners then supplied DXF files of the Coats of Arms and associated lettering for the three members of the Royal Family.
Once imported into Holifields' Licom CAD system, each design required several hours of manual, on-screen work to smooth areas of the profile that had not been accurately captured during the original scanning of two-dimensional transparencies supplied by the Royal Warrant office.
It was also necessary to close all pockets within the geometry of the shields and remove any overlaps to ensure that the AlphaCAM system generated uninterrupted cutter paths.
After milling, a small amount of hand polishing was carried out by Holifields to remove the machining marks.
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