Microloc Vice - Goodturn Review

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Goodturn Engineering had batch sizes varying from one offs’ to 5,000 at any one time and employees found the tightening and releasing of its workholding vices very repetitive – until they introduced the MicroLoc 75 Series Power Station Workholding System from MicroLoc.

The general subcontractor based in redditch has a CNC turning and milling section with four Haas CNC machining centres that manufacture anything from floating candles used in a well known film to parts for classic cars/motorcycles, aerospace and health industries. It is the cnc milling was suffering when regular batches from a few hundred to a couple of thousand parts gave the shopfloor staff difficulty with continually manually handling components.

Mr Philip Eaves, Goodturn Director comments: “We were operating our workholding vices like many manufacturers, but it wasn’t feasible with our batch production, so we visited a MACH show in 2006 and found the MicroLoc 75 Series Power Station. The benefits were explained to us and we were initially sceptical, but we could see the potential benefits and decided to invest. We bought two Micorloc Workholding systems and now, we wish we made the move sooner as this workholding has been a revelation to our company and the benefits have been remarkable.”

It was the productivity that made the biggest impact on Goodturn’s business as Mr Eaves commented: “We noticed an immediate impact on our batch production and it is estimated that we save at least one days production each week credit to the MicroLoc workholding system. The new system is a case of hitting a button to tighten and loosen a part from the jaws and the time this saves in comparison to manually tightening and loosening a vice handle is remarkable.”

Goodturn now has seven hydraulic vices that can simultaneously fit on the MicroLoc 75 workholding Series for multiple part machining. The hydraulic fittings are connected to a pneumatic compressor located outside the machining envelope that does not obstruct the working area and the operator.

As Mr Eaves says: “We often set up multiple workholding vices and jobs, which in turn reduce production times. With regard to set-up, it is just a case of linking additional manifolds and this takes no time at all. Once we have our zero offsets programmed into the machine we can change over jobs and programmes very quickly.”

“As a forward thinking precision engineer we have invested in four Haas machining centres in five years and if our type of work permitted it, I would have the MicroLoc workholding system on every machine. It has been a great for our business. It has improved our cycle times, accuracy, repeatability, quality and above all reduced the strain on our workforce,” concludes Mr Eaves.

Adding to the comments of Mr Eaves, MicroLoc’s Mr Matt Janess adds: “You can have the most expensive and most productive machine tool available at your disposal but if your ‘non-cutting’ times are long due to set-ups, all the good benefits of a world class machine tool go out of the window. The application at Goodturn demonstrates the benefits of good workholding practices with regard to productivity, repetition, accuracy and quality.”

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