When Maurice Hammond created Eye Tech Engineering in 1985, his ambition was simply to provide a precision sub-contract machining service for customers local to the company’s base in Suffolk. However, 30 years later those ambitions have changed somewhat, with the business now split 50:50 between the original sub-contracting and the restoration of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and components for the vintage aircraft industry.
The path to Merlin engine restoration began very early on through Mr Hammond’s skill at flying model aircraft. When funds allowed, he went on to get a pilot’s licence. Being an engineer, he began investigating the mechanical aspects of the aircraft he was flying and subsequently built his own plane in 1991.
Now well and truly bitten by the bug, he bought two identical but damaged planes and built one good one from the parts. This led to the full restoration of a WW2 Harvard ‘warbird’. The connections that he made doing this led to the manufacture — on a commercial basis — of replacement aircraft parts, which included anything from pistons to propellers.
With further aircraft restorations under his belt, including a Hawker Hurricane and a P51 Mustang, Mr Hammond gained the necessary approval to overhaul the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in his own planes, which in turn led to requests from other enthusiasts for a similar service.
In the 15 years that Eye Tech has been restoring Merlins, a total of 30 engines have been overhauled (the time required to overhaul these engines restricts ‘production’ to just two a year). While the manufacture of new parts for the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines is strictly controlled in the UK, Eye Tech saw an increased demand for parts from enthusiasts all over the world.
This side of the business now accounts for 50% of the company’s turnover, with the balance coming from general sub-contracting — everything from plastic pulleys through to precision-engineered parts for food-labelling equipment.
Production efficiency
To help maintain production and efficiency, Eye Tech has recently installed three machines from Burlescombe-based XYZ Machine Tools (
www.xyzmachinetools.com). These are an XYZ 3000 manual turret mill, an XYZ Mini Mill 560 machining centre and a 2-OP portable vertical machining centre.
“We knew we had to replace a number of obsolete machines from another manufacturer, as they were becoming unreliable and spares were getting increasingly hard to locate. Being unsure which way to turn for replacements we asked our freelance maintenance contractor, who suggested XYZ. We visited the XYZ showroom and were suitably impressed by the solid cast beds used on the machines and the fact that the range suited our needs completely. Moreover, the machines’ compact footprints would make installation in our restricted floor space easy.”
In fact, the lack of floorspace was instrumental in the decision to purchase the XYZ 2-OP portable vertical machining centre. While this machine is designed to be relocated anywhere in a factory, at Eye Tech it remains in one location, fitting perfectly between two other machining centres.
Machine shop management
With Mr Hammond concentrating on manual machining and Merlin engine restoration, the day-to-day running of the machine shop has been handed over to his daughter Leah Young, who joined the business in 2004. She says: “The XYZ 2-OP is being used as a stand-alone machining centre, producing a variety of small parts that need milling, drilling, tapping and profiling. With its tool-changer and impressive capacity for a machine of its size, it is helping to improve our productivity.”
For a machine with a footprint of just 1,220 x 760mm, the XYZ 2-OP is highly capable. It features a 3hp 50-6,000rev/min BT30 spindle, an eight-position tool-changer, a work envelope of 355 x 305 x 455mm and feed rates up to 15m/min. At 457 x 381mm, the table has the capacity to hold components up to 250 kg. Control is provided by the versatile ProtoTrak system, which is both quick and easy to learn.
The XYZ Mini Mill 560 is also under the watchful eye of Leah; it is being used for small to medium batch work of between 25 and 1,000 components. This machine has a 15hp 8,000rev/min spindle, a work envelope of 560 x 400 x 500mm and a 3,100kg solid cast base and column; and to ensure a quick transition from its old machines to the new XYZ mills, Eye Tech took the free training on offer at XYZ’s Nuneaton showroom. Once that was completed, they also had access to the applications engineers regarding programming problems on the Siemens 828D ShopMill control on the Mini Mill 560 or the ProtoTrak control on the 2-OP.
The XYZ 3000 mill is very much Mr Hammond’s domain, with his preference for manual machining. It is used predominantly for jig and fixture-type work, making full use of its 780 x 410 x 406mm travels and Newall DP700 digital read-out system. Installation of the machines, which was undertaken over the Easter holiday, entailed removing a wall and bringing all three machines in at the same time.
Ms Young says: “What has been most reassuring about the purchase of these three XYZ machines is the level of customer service. Everyone we have spoken to has been helpful; the applications engineers are quick to respond to any issues we may have with programming, and they always call back when they say they will. It is also nice to know that stock parts for all XYZ machines — and a service engineer — can be with you very quickly to get you back into production.”