SpecDrum Engineering — one of the world’s largest suppliers of conveyor pulleys — has purchased a 3m Colchester Mastiff centre lathe and a Colchester MultiTurn 3000 CNC lathe from 600 UK (
www.600uk.com) for its County Tyrone manufacturing facility.
The company makes more than 50,000 pulleys a year, most of which are used in the crushing and screening, recycling, aviation and materials-handling industries.
When growing demand put its existing production machinery under pressure, it spoke to Gillen Machine Tools about up-
grading its capabilities.
Philip Gillen says: “SpecDrum operates an impressive engineering shop, but some of its machines — at 20 years old — were beginning to feel the test of time. One of these machines was a predecessor to 600 UK’s Colchester MultiTurn CNC lathe; it had performed reliably throughout its lifetime.”
The decision was taken to purchase the latest — and most appropriate — Colchester models, to be sure of getting high-quality equipment that the company’s machine operators would be familiar with.
SpecDrum director Martin McCabe says: “Our previous Colchester lathe was simple to operate and performed well — features that we didn’t want to lose though the improvement process. With the assistance of Gillen Machine Tools, we selected the best replacement machines for our purposes, and we are delighted with the results.”
The new Colchester Mastiff centre lathe and MultiTurn 3000 are high-performance machines that use simpler lathe controls. Designed for long-lasting precision and productivity — and ‘packed’ with safety features — the Mastiff has a constant surface speed option.
Meanwhile, the MultiTurn 3000 can be set to a variety of tasks, including heavy-duty components. With both machines installed and operating beyond expectations, SpecDrum considers its upgrade operation a major success.