For several months, Tornos (www.tornos.com) has been offering a complete overhaul service for its Deco machines. One of the first customers to take advantage of this was the Swiss company Laubscher Präzision — founded in 1846 and now the largest independent bar turning company in Switzerland, with over 500 production machines and 240 employees.

Laubscher has been using Tornos machines for about 100 years, and it was one of the first customers for Deco machines when they were introduced in 1996. When these 10 machines had clocked up over 60,000hr, it was time to address the issue of their replacement.

Technical director Manfred Laubscher and his team looked at a number of possible solutions, including the purchase of new machines or having the existing ones overhauled by Tornos — not by a third party, due to a few negative overhaul experiences.

He contacted Tornos service manager Simon Aebi to discuss his options, and the order was placed for the overhaul of an initial test machine.

The machine was completely dismantled, and all wear parts, ballscrews, slides, cables and motors were replaced. It was also equipped with cyclical central lubrication. The overhaul was completed within five weeks, after which the ‘as new’ machine resumed its normal production rate (24hr a day, six days a week).

After a few weeks of operation, Laubscher was satisfied with the work done and arranged for the other nine Deco machines to be overhauled.