Towards the end of last year — and having worked for other people for over 40 years — Barry Clayden decided that if he was going to continue spending long hours working, it may as well be for himself. In October last year, he formed Clayden Precision Engineering, which is based in Hoddesdon.

Some months before Mr Clayden started his business, he was invited to an XYZ Open House (www.xyzmachinetools.com) at the company’s Waltham Abbey showroom, where its new 2-OP was being introduced.

Not having used XYZ machines, before he saw his visit as a good opportunity to investigate the range further; and while he decided that the 2-OP was not what he needed for his start-up business, the XYZ MiniMill 560 machining centre and XYZ Compact Turn 52 LTY turning centre were. With his son Lewis, Mr Clayden investigated further.

“We had an agreement with a customer manufacturing hydraulic connectors that are mainly used in Formula One and other motor-sport applications. It was with these parts in mind that we started looking for machines. Initially, we wanted a small machining centre and a two-axis lathe, but when we got talking to XYZ salesman Colin Thomson and he explained the advantages of the Y axis on the Compact Turn 52 LTY machine, it all made perfect sense.”

The next issue for the fledgling company was financing the machines. Here, XYZ arranged a deal via its preferred finance suppliers; moreover, XYZ’s Mr Thompson highlighted the fact that Clayden Precision could apply for grants through the Regional Growth Fund — equating to £10,000 per machine.

The criteria for receiving the grant was that the company had to recruit new employees, which it did; Lewis became a full-time employee, and Edward Farrell joined the team as workshop supervisor/CNC programmer.

Mr Clayden said: “XYZ and its partners organising the funding removed a major headache for us, and we placed the machine order in the last week of September. We got the keys to the factory on 1 October, and the machines were
delivered and installed by 13 October.

"We then had three days training at XYZ’s Waltham Abbey showroom and were straight back to our factory making parts. The first component we programmed was a quite complex plastic part; when we showed it to the XYZ applications
engineer, even he was impressed with our newly acquired skills.”

The Siemens controls on the XYZ MiniMill 560 and Compact Turn 52 LTY were a ‘step change’ for Mr Clayden; he had never used conversational programming before, having been steeped in the world of G-code for many years.

However, the change was extremely smooth and the learning curve shorter than expected, with Lewis taking the lead on this. “The Siemens 828D control makes life so much easier; and because we do a large variety of components that are similar, it is a quick and straightforward procedure to develop new programs from existing ones.

"With G-codes, programming would be a more drawn-out process. We certainly feel that we are more productive, and the superb graphics definitely make programming at the machine and proving out programs so much quicker and easier.”

This speed of programming and set-up is vital to Clayden Precision, as its work is mainly small-volume batches, with 100-off being a large quantity. The benefit of the Y axis on the Compact Turn 52 LTY has also been proven,
as the company has won work that it knows it would not have been able to compete for without the ability to complete components in a single hit.

With the business just a few months old, confidence is high, and Clayden Precision Engineering is currently going through the process of gaining the ISO 9001 international quality standard.

In conclusion, Mr Clayden says: “We have been busy from the off, and the support that we received from XYZ Machine Tools was a great help, allowing us to meet the deadlines for those early orders. We are already looking at our next XYZ machine.”