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Vertical turning lathe from Toshiba installed by Leader CNC at Kail and Co

Story added 16 February 2010.

Working in the oil & gas sector for over 20 years, Kail & Co. Ltd has continually evolved to maintain a competitive edge an evolution that has noted an annual machine tool investment of £250k per annum. However, when the Sunderland based subcontractor won a new contract from its major customer, it upped the investment considerably.

Kail & Co has been manufacturing internal components for oil & gas assemblies such as spring valves, safety relief valves and peripheral parts for over twelve years. But when the globally renowned customer found processing the cast bodies and bonnets a laborious and costly process, Kail & Co stepped up to the mark. To machine the large cast parts, the family owned business acquired a Matsuura H+630 twin pallet horizontal machining centre and a Toshiba TMF-10 Vertical Turning Lathe from Leader CNC.

The machines arrived in July and September 2009 respectively, marking a 2009 investment level in excess of £500,000, an exceptional commitment during a recession. As Kail & Co Managing Director, Mr Steven Pattison comments: &ldquoWe have invested heavily in recent years with 75% of our plant list being less than 5 years old. We have been producing small internal components for the oil and gas sector for some time, so when we were given the opportunity to take on the large castings, we jumped at the chance. This immediately demanded further and larger investments. We opted for the Matsuura H+630 because we have a number of their machine tools and have found them very reliable.&rdquo

&ldquoWhen it came to the floor borer, we were only too aware that the awkward shape of the castings would imbalance the parts on a horizontal turning lathe, so we had to opt for a VTL. We reviewed the market at some depth and there was nothing in the same league as the Toshiba TMF-10 vertical lathe from Leader CNC. We had never bought a machine from them before but our research gave us feedback we couldn&rsquot ignore. We were informed that Leader CNC provides excellent service and the Toshiba range delivers reliability and performance second to none, a combination we couldn&rsquot resist,&rdquo says Mr Pattison.

With a long-term contract set to arrive in September 2009, the 35 employee subcontractor had to move fast, as its large turning centres were not 100% reliable. When ing a new turning centre, the ISO: 9001 and ISO: 14001 company was very demanding. Working in the medical, aerospace, motorsport and oil & gas industries for many years and machining materials like nickel alloys, carbon steels, stainless steels and numerous grades including Duplex, it was evident that high power and rigidity was a necessity. With a 26kW table motor and an 11kW spindle motor set upon a fully cast base that gives the TMF-10 an overall weight of over 11 tonnes the Toshiba immediately met the rigidity and power needs of the customer.

Kail & Co was aware that its customer had previously been machining the raw castings and they encountered problems, firstly with clamping the bodies and bonnets and secondly with the inconsistent size ranges of the casts and their material composition. As Kail & Co General Manager, Mr Ray Welsh states: &ldquoTo overcome these issues we had to consider the work envelope of the machine and above all, the ability to machine as many faces as possible without repeatedly re-setting the castings. The Toshiba has a rotating 1m bed with a 700mm working height that gives us sufficient working space, which drastically reduced set-up times.&rdquo

The set-ups are further reduced and production cycles improved with a 24 tool carousel with driven tooling that enables the subcontractor to maintain its tool settings for its 20 to 30 castings that incorporate hundreds of internal component variations. Mr Welsh continues: &ldquoThe bores on the castings vary from 2 to 8 inch diameter and this demands heavy machining on difficult materials. The Toshiba has BT50 taper tooling that conveniently interchanges with the new Matsuura and when fitted into an extremely rigid and robust machine, our tool life is drastically improved.&rdquo

The rigidity of the Toshiba TMF-10 has improved surface finishes and production time whilst improving tool life by over 100%. As Mr Welsh states: &ldquoPrior to the introduction of the TMF we had relatively unsecure clamping and an insufficient work envelope in our turning department. This only allowed the machine programmers to take 1mm deep cuts. Whilst this is impressive considering the materials, speeds and feeds we can now take 4-5mm deep cuts with confidence in the rigidity and power of the Toshiba. This has improved tool life over 100% and cycle times by over 50%, figures we could never have expected considering the machine has only been fully operational a couple of months.&rdquo

Whilst it is still early days in the development of the project, Kail and Company are confident that they can meet the customers&rsquo long term requirements for quality, price and capacity. This being achieved within nine months of the project start up.

Furthermore the machine operators are finding the Fanuc 18iT control system extremely user friendly. The graphics system on the control simplify processes whilst the canned cycle programme simplifies drilling and tapping on a PCD &ndash something done on a daily basis at Kail & Co. Added to this is the capability to utilise the Toshiba TMF-10 as a vertical lathe as well as a machining centre.


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