A Jones & Shipman Suprema 650 Easy cylindrical grinder has been added to the machining portfolio of Gloucestershire-based Quickmach Engineering Ltd, which specialises in aircraft actuation and undercarriage equipment.
Operations director Malcolm Beach says: “There has been a significant upturn in build rates for aircraft such as the A320 and Dreamliner, and that has impacted our production volumes. It has necessitated us manufacturing in batch quantities up to 150, where the focus on repeatability is all-important — hence our decision to invest in additional high-precision grinding capacity. This is our first new J&S machine, and we are in the process of integrating it into our CAD/CAM network.”
Much of Quickmach’s production comprises actuator pistons and cylinders made from stainless steel, with many of them also chromed. The machining tolerances are demanding — the minimum ‘house’ tolerance is 5µm — and super-finishing to remove grinding burrs is frequently undertaken. Self-sufficiency was a key factor in bringing more grinding work in-house.
The Suprema Easy grinding machine (
www.jonesshipman.com) is equally adept at high-volume — and high-precision — production grinding, small-batch work and one-offs.
An important factor in the design process was to combine high geometric accuracy with quick change-overs between different grinding operations to maximise machine usage.
With batch grinding a key requirement, Quickmach opted for both a Marposs single-mounted diameter gauge (with two finger lengths) and a shoulder-location touch-trigger probe designed to allow the position of the component to be detected in the Z-axis plane. Also included was acoustic gap elimination, which has proved invaluable, given the varying thickness of chrome plate.