Cheshire-based Numac Engineering Ltd — a specialist in high-quality precision engineering, with over half its business conducted in the oil and gas sector — has ordered a Hermle C42UMT five-axis mill-turn centre to strengthen its prismatic machining capability and add extra turning capacity, as it targets more-complex work for the aerospace and motor-sport sectors.

Supplied by Gosport-based Kingsbury (www.kingsburyuk.com), the new trunnion-type machine will be installed at the sub-contractor’s Stalybridge factory in October.

The metals machined on the site include most grades of stainless steel, as well as titanium and nickel alloys such as Hastelloy and Incoloy.

Numac’s managing director, Andy McLaren, said: “We have four-axis horizontal-spindle and vertical-spindle machining centres here, but we are keen to add full five-axis milling and drilling, both to increase the complexity of the parts we can produce and to reduce the number of set-ups needed for 3+2-axis work.

“The torque table on the Hermle will cut the number of separate operations even further on some of our mill-turned components, as we will be able to avoid a separate clamping on a lathe.”

Mr McLaren added that he had spent 18 months researching the five-axis mill-turn centres available on the market and chose the Hermle primarily due to its superior turning capability, the table having a maximum speed of 800rev/min and the ability to turn components with the trunnion positioned at any angle.

Other attributes of the C42UMT that attracted him include its 800 x 800 x 550mm working volume and its 18,000rev/min HSK-T63 spindle — more than double the speed of the other machines on the shopfloor at Stalybridge.