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Mill-Turning Centres Take Components' Costs Down
01 Jul 2005
Two Traub mill-turning centres from Geo Kingsbury have been installed at the Totnes works of subcontractor, Vire Engineering, for round-the-clock machining of components from bar in a single visit to the machine. Work is regularly carried out for the defence and security industries, but a majority of production is high quality hose and pipe fittings for brake, fuel, oil and coolant assemblies used in motorsport, from Clubman up to Formula One.
Vire Engineering produces around 2,500 different fittings in batches of between 50- and 2,000-off from stainless steel, mild steel, titanium and aluminium, most having a hose attachment at one end and a coupling or banjo union at the other. Large stocks of standard parts are held to provide the next-day delivery that customers demand.
Vire's owner and managing director, Jan Vincent, explained: "In early 2001 we decided to take cost out of manufacturing these parts with a suitably equipped CNC lathe for lights-out production. Although it proved successful, the machine did not have driven tooling or a sub spindle and so components still needed to undergo second operations.
"So two years later we opted to cut production costs further by choosing a Traub TNK36 mill-turn centre fitted with an Lemca bar magazine for single-hit production of parts up to 36mm diameter, 24 hours a day."
A smaller Traub TNL12K with FMB Minimag bar magazine was installed at the end of 2004. Most components of 16mm diameter and under were transferred to this machine, which is also well equipped with driven tooling and a counter spindle and has the added capability of a head that travels 50mm into and out of the cutting zone.
Tel: 01803 862258
