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Heavy Shafts Machined to H8 Along 3.185m Length
01 May 2004
BIFTV, the Glenrothes based heavy precision machining company has succeeded in taking the production of large scale precision components to a new level of accuracy in the recent manufacture of large rotor shafts for hydroelectric power generation.
The company has recently completed the machining of two nickel chrome molybdenum alloy shafts, each weighing close to 80 tonnes. The BIFTV team's challenge was to machine fourteen 90mm wide by 20mm deep slots on the surface of this giant which measured 1.6m in diameter. Each slot was 3.185m long and had to be machined to a tolerance of H8 along its entire length!
Archie Skinner, general manager at BIFTV told us: "This was a real challenge for our team. At 80 tonnes, the rotor was the same weight as a train carriage, which we had to rotate and then machine to plus 1.8 thousandths of an inch, minus nothing.
"Our engineers needed to build a custom fixture for our vertical gantry mill to allow us to work to such a high degree of accuracy on the rotor. We developed the unique tooling we required with our key supplier Seco and their recently acquired solid carbide end mill manufacturer, Jabro. The slots were rough milled using 80mm Seco helical mills and the accurate finish milling was achieved with 25mm diameter Seco/Jabro solid carbide end mills."
www.biftv.com
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