A four-spindle Omnisprint deep-hole drilling machine recently supplied by Chessington-based Mollart Ltd (www.mollart.com) is enabling a bottle-moulding company in Mexico to increase its penetration rates five-fold when drilling cooling holes in a series of cast-iron bottle moulds.

Such has been this machine’s success that the customer has now ordered a second.

Sales director Ian Petitt said: “The enquiry came from the IMTS exhibition in Chicago in 2016, with the order won because Mollart’s application team was able to double the drill penetration rates that the company had been using.

“Once the machine was built, our application team carried out further process development for the customer in conjunction with specialist tooling partner Botek.

“As a result, the penetration rates of the drills were increased from two- to five-times the original method used by the moulding company.”

The cooling holes range in diameter from 4 to 9mm and can be up to 400mm deep; these are now drilled at a feed rate of 600mm/min.

“Even at these enhanced penetration rates, the process we developed is holding hole straightness to within 0.2mm. This is essential, as certain holes are very close to outer surfaces and other features in the moulds.”