CNC Motorsport in Cheltenham manufactures ‘out of production’ parts for historic motorsport and race cars from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. Predominantly machining aluminium and steel, the parts are either reverse-engineered from the original components or the company works from drawings. To improve its productivity and throughput, the company has just invested in a VM20i 3-axis machining centre from Hurco.
Discussing the components and the reason for the purchase of the small footprint machine, Alan Strachan from CNC Motorsport says: “The volumes we produce are very low and can be from a single component up to 10 components, which would likely be our equivalent of a production run. The reason we bought the Hurco machine is that we had a previous machine, and it just wasn’t doing it for us. It was letting us down and we needed something that worked, that can be reliable and produce parts quick.”
Commenting upon his visit to the Hurco facility in High Wycombe, Alan says: “I was very impressed with the facility. We met with David and one of the applications guys from Hurco and the one thing that struck us about the demonstration was that they were machining steel faster than we could machine aluminium. My son and I looked at each other, we were both very impressed and that demonstration sold the machine to us. We are now looking at parts differently than we have done before. We now have the capability to run long tools, as this is what some of our components require. We have always bought tooling with a lot of flute length, but we haven’t been able to use that full flute length until now. Now, we have changed the way that we machine. We are now using the full length of the tool and they last a lot longer because they are not loaded the same as before.”
With a 20hp 12,000rpm spindle as standard and a BIG PLUS (CAT/BT 40) spindle taper, there is little surprise the 4108kg machine is providing a platform of stability for the subcontracting business. Alluding to what this stability provides, Alan, confirms: “This means we can machine much faster, as we are not putting all the leverage on the tip of the tool. The Hurco is giving us a far better way of machining and the tools do last much longer. If you have a 20mm flute length and you are not machining with the full flute depth, you are not maximising the capability of the tool or loading it correctly. With the stability to use a full tool flute length, we are cutting much more efficiently and tooling costs are certainly something to be considered,” says Alan.
From a productivity perspective, Alan continues: “It’s quite an eye-opener seeing how the machine performs compared to the machine we had before. The material removal rate is night and day compared to what it was before. For example, we have one part on the machine that has a cycle time that is almost one hour faster than with the previous machine. We used to think that with small batch work, this wouldn’t make much of a difference. We didn’t really think it was that important that a new machine could machine something five minutes faster than another machine, or that the tool could perform any better. But, at the end of the day, when it stacks up, it does make a very big difference. It may be just a case of getting small volume parts through the shop floor faster, but that does mean we can get on to the next batch of small volume parts sooner.”
Commenting upon the Hurco Winmax CNC control system, Alan says: “It’s been absolutely superb. It is just so effective, it is relatively simple to use but there is always an element of a learning curve when you are starting to use new software. It really performs very well and the machining strategies work very well with the types of cut that we take, and that reflects on tool life and how quickly we can produce a piece part.”
Alluding to the 4th-axis unit on the new investment, Alan recalls: “The 4th-axis is to give us more capability. Hurco put together a package and we are very happy with what we have. We are happy with the service, the support, the teamwork and the overall package. If we have a support query with Hurco, we will get an email response or call back immediately. Going a step further, Hurco will call us a couple of days afterwards to make sure that our query has been resolved satisfactorily. You really do feel like a valued customer and not somebody that has just bought a machine.”
Looking to the future, Alan concludes: “We will be looking to improve machine efficiency even further in the future, as we are not currently using the full capability of the 4th-axis unit. With fixturing, tooling and programming on the WinMAX, we can produce multiple parts by installing a tombstone on the rotary 4th-axis. This means we will be able to load a complete car worth of components and machine them all in one go, rather than putting individual components on the machine.”
