With the prospect of more oil-related projects such as turning large steel parts on the horizon here is how an Ayrshire company decided its choice of another large-capacity CNC lathe.
With the prospect of more oil-related projects such as turning large steel parts on the horizon, Ayrshire based Jigs and Fixtures really needed to purchase another large-capacity CNC lathe. Ideally, the company wanted a suitably sized machine which was rigid, powerful and easy to program but what it did not want to do was to spend a fortune. This led to the selection of a Colchester Combi 6000 lathe with a 3000mm bed which was supplied by MCE Marketing of Glasgow, the Scottish distributor for Colchester Lathes and so ideal was the solution the company quickly bought a second with a longer bed length.

As Jigs and Fixtures’ partner William Hyslop explained: ‘As well as meeting our all-round specification, with its 800mm swing and 26kW motor, the Combi worked out to be about one third the cost of a more traditional, large swing CNC lathe.

What’s more, it took up less floor space and had an ideal speed range which would also allow us to machine aluminium alloy components, as well as steel.’ The Combi 6000 was installed in the company’s 22,000 ft2 factory at Stewarton in November 2001, where it joined some 20 other CNC machine tools.

Such was the success of the installation of the flat-bed electronic/CNC lathe on a wide range of oil industry work, that Jigs and Fixtures promptly bought a second just seven months later.

This latest Combi 6000 has a larger 4000mm bed length and combined with its 175mm diameter spindle bore allows components much longer than itself to be machined.

While the first Combi now tends to handle shorter type components, both lathes can also be used on the same work, carrying out different operations in order to reduce turn-around times.

This is confirmed by William Hyslop who maintains: ‘The beauty of having the two similar machines with identical controls means we can easily spread work between them, as and when production schedules demand.

We often carry out sequential operations on the same components using both lathes and because of the different bed lengths can handle a much wider variety of components.

With a top speed of some 1,500 revs/min, we also have the advantage to machine quite small diameter parts on the Combi, and this is a tremendous flexibility factor which helps us balance our workload.’ The two Colchesters have also enabled the company to quote for work it couldn’t handle before both in terms of the length and cost-effective production and their all-round versatility is highlighted by components as small as 20 mm diameter and as large as 480mm diameter have been turned on both machines.

Employing some 52 people, Jigs and Fixtures is a family-owned and run precision engineering business which has gained a reputation for high quality work, on-time deliveries and close working relationships with customers since it was established in 1977.

The company is actively involved in tool-making producing a wide range of press tools and moulds and machines precision components.

Over the last 12 to 18 months, the company has progressively moved into machining parts for the oil and gas industry and invested in 11 vertical machining centres, nine CNC lathes and five wire edm machines, which are all DNC linked to several different off-line programming systems.

One advantage to Jigs and Fixtures is that the Combi lathes can be programmed in a number of different ways through the Fanuc 210I-TA control and Colchester developed software.

The company tends to mainly use manual data input for simpler shaped components and off-line programming for more detailed and complex type work which is then DNC downloaded to the machines.

Typical of the parts produced are 495mm diameter by 762mm long cylinders for the oil industry in batches of 21.

These EN40 steel parts require profile turning, boring and external threading at both ends and floor to floor times tend to be around 12 hours for each cylinder.

Meanwhile other oil-related components measuring up to 5000mm long by 152mm diameter have been machined by passing the job through the large spindle bore.

When machining such long components the operators mount several steadies along the bed of the machine.

Jigs and Fixtures can certainly be described as impressed with the performance of the two Colchester Combis.

‘We initially looked at several other CNC lathes,’ added William Hyslop, ‘but were impressed by the all-round specification and value for money of the Combi machines.

The fact that we already know Colchester - having already bought a number of CNC 3000L and 4000L lathes over the years, we had to be sure the machines were going to be right for the task.