Macvere

There are no components under 32 mm that we cannot put on our 11 sliding-headstock mill-turn centres,” stated Gary Macey, joint managing director with his brother, Mark, of general subcontract shop, Macvere Engineering.

“The flexibility of these machines, together with our eight fixed-head lathes plus machining centres and wire eroders, means we can offer customers a complete machining service across a whole package of work.”

Nine of the sliding-head lathes at Macvere are from one supplier, Star Micronics. The first was installed in 1996, since which time Macvere has progressively replaced cam auto’s that Mr Macey’s father, Richard, bought when he started the company in 1972.

Continued Mr Macey, “We put most of our mill-turned parts on the sliding-head lathes because they have faster axis movements than our fixed-head turning machines and so are quicker and more productive.

To illustrate how versatile his CNC sliding-head lathes are, Mr Macey cited a connector block that he used to produce manually in four separate operations from rectangular brass extrusion. Floor to floor time was 90 seconds.

The same part was subsequently machined much more economically in one hit on a Star sliding-head lathe in a 30-second cycle, despite only driven tool operations being needed in the main and counter spindles no turning was required apart from parting off.

 

“There are no sub-32mm parts that we cannot put on our sliding-headstock lathes.”

 

Gary Macey

Macvere Engineering