Product category:
CNC automatic lathes
News Release from: Star Micronics GB | Subject: Star CNC sliding head lathes
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 11 January 2008
CNC sliding head lathes do all jobs
under 32mm
Sub contract machinist reckoned that there are no components under 32mm diamter that can not be machined on the multi-axis CNC sliding head lathes operated by the company.
Dscribing the effectiveness of the Star CNC sliding head lathes operated by a sub contract machine shop, Macvere Engineering, its joint managing director, Gary Macey, said: "There are no sub-32mm components that we cannot put on our 11 sliding-headstock mill-turn centres." Macey added: "The flexibility of these machines, together with our eight fixed-head lathes, machining centres and wire eroders, means that we can offer customers a complete machining service across a whole package of work" Macvere Engineering, based in Hampshire, UK, is operated by joint managing diectors, Gary and Mark Macey
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 14 Jul 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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The company installed its first of nine CNC sliding head automatics - supplied by Star Micronics, in 1996.
Since then, Macvere has progressively replaced cam auto's that the Macey brother's father, Richard, bought when he started the company back in 1972.
Macvere Engineering decommissioned its last cam automatics in 2007, when the latest two Star lathes were delivered.
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Magazine feeds small diameter, full-length bars
Designed for feeding sliding-head and fixed-head automatic lathes with bar in the diameter range 2 to 16 mm, the new Turbo 2-16 has been added to the lower end of FMB's standard bar magazine range.
Even so a couple of the cam autos have been temporarily brought back into service to fulfil a large order for switchgear parts.
* Versatility - to illustrate how versatile CNC sliding-head lathes are, Gary Macey exampled a connector block used to be produced manually from rectangular brass extrusion for an electric meter manufacturer.
The previous operational sequence consisted of four separate operations as follows.
1 - Saw the block to length.
2 - Drill and tap it in a jig.
3 - Reset it in another jig.
4- Drill the end.
Floor to floor time was 90s.
Machining the same part in one hit on a Star sliding-head lathe needed only a 30s cycle, despite only driven tool operations being needed in the main and counter spindles.
There was no turning, apart from parting-off.
* Machining brass gears - another example of cost-cutting that helped Macvere to retain a contract involved using a Star SV-32 to turn, bore and hob a brass spur gear for a counting machine.
The ability of the rigid sliding-head lathe to perform in-cycle hobbing saved 70p/component.
Previously the 70p was paid to an external gearcutting company.
Lead-time was also reduced, said Gary Macey.
* Machining SS switchgear component - a more conventional application for sliding-headstock machining requires turning and milling of a long, slender shaft on a Star SR-20RIII, one of the latest machines to be installed at the Macvere Engineering's works.
In common with the SV-32, it is equipped with high-pressure coolant (HPC) delivery at 70 bar which assists in deep hole drilling and when cutting stainless steel, whose stringy swarf is broken up more efficiently to assist clearance from the working area.
Balance-milling of 6mm diameter bar produces two opposing flats along more than two-thirds of the shaft, after which the spindle is rotated, the outside diameter is turned, and grooves are machined along the other third of the shaft.
After parting-off and pick-up in the counter spindle, another flat is milled at the reverse end.
Total cycle time is 2 min.
Gary Macey continued: "We put most of our mill-turned parts on the sliding-head lathes because they have faster axis movements than our fixed-head turning machines and so are quicker and more productive.
The parts come off in one hit, as all of our sliding-head machines have a counter spindle and live tooling, whereas some of our bar-fed, fixed-head models do not".
He added: "Moreover, as all sliding-headstock machines are equipped with a bar magazine, they can be loaded to run a ghost shift overnight, cutting down on labour costs.
A brass screw ran 24 hours a day for a week on one of our Stars recently".
* Economical batch size - batch size on the sliding-head lathes can be as low as 100-off, although runs of 150,000-off are frequently undertaken by Macvere for customers in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Russia, Scandinavia and Europe.
A broad spread of materials is machined, from Teflon, aluminium and brass to high tensile steels.
Any turned part above 32mm goes onto one of the fixed-head lathes, which have bar capacities up to 65mm diameter and can chuck up to 280mm.
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