Designed to undertake heavy-duty milling operations — such as roughing-out cycles when creating datums for dies and moulds, hogging out, or removing scale and harder surfaces prior to re-setting for precision machining — the AJVBM series of vertical milling machines from Lymington-based Ajax Machine Tools International Ltd (www.ajax-mach.co.uk) offers travels up to 2,000 x 800 x 700mm, spindle powers up to 11kW and 3.5kW feed motors that drive through mechanical gearboxes.

These non-CNC machines, which can be specified with Heidenhain or Newall two- or three-axis digital read-outs, feature heavy-duty ribbed castings, hardened and ground solid box-ways and an ISO50 spindle taper.

The range starts with the AJVBM 3, which has a 1,700 x 380mm table, a working envelope of 1,000 x 380 x 500mm, a gap of up to 500mm between the spindle and the table, a 5.5kW spindle with a speed range of 45-1,500rev/min in 12 steps, and a feed range of 20-1,000mm/min.

The largest machine, the AJVBM 8, weighs in at 11.8 tonnes. It has a 2,700 x 750mm table, a working envelope of 2,000 x 800 x 700mm, a gap of up to 770mm between the spindle and the table, an 11kW spindle that offers a steplessly variable speed range of 45-1,500rev/min, and a maximum feed of 1,000mm/min.