The Hardinge Group Blog

The first phase of a planned programme of capital equipment investment has seen the South Wales toolmaking design and manufacturer FSG Tool & Die invest in a further two new Jones & Shipman grinding machines.

With a heritage in precision grinding – the company started in 1961 as a specialist in the process – FSB has expanded its operations over the years to become firmly established as one of the UK’s leading die and mould manufacturers servicing a wide range of end users including metal, foil and plastic packaging, pharmaceutical, automotive and prototyping.

In its machine shops it operates a full spectrum of machine tools including 17 Jones & Shipman grinding machines of various models.  Its top of the range cylindrical grinder is a J&S Ultramat CNC 4-axis external cylindrical grinding machine with a table mounted CNC diaform.  As this machine is effectively dedicated to the requirements of one major automotive customer it has now been supplemented with a new J&S Ultramat 1000 Easy cylindrical grinder along with a new Techmaster Easy 634 profile and surface grinder.

“We undertook a detailed audit of available machines in these two categories and opted for the Jones & Shipman units on the basis of our favourable experience of existing machines and the proven levels of technical support and service backup we have come to expect from them,” explains Ian Slaughter, Business Improvement and Apprentice Training Manager at the Llantrisant plant. “Increasingly we are being asked for finished products in shorter and shorter lead times and we felt that investment in newer, faster and more adept machines was necessary.

The Ultramat 1000 cylindrical grinder offers us the best of both world’s having the dual automatic and manual capability – the manual option being very useful for what we call ‘nitty gritty’ work. This is very important in our environment and we estimate that when we have all of our programmes loaded the Ultramat 1000 will be able to accommodate some 90% of cylindrical grinding programmes we hold for our 300 plus customers.”

The dual capability aside, features of the Ultramat include ease of operation and set up – the latter using Jones & Shipman’s purpose developed Easy software that is touch screen controlled.  Auto cycles include plunge, traverse, face, taper and thread grinding but if the operator requires running in manual mode, this is controlled by two electronic hand wheels. There are profile, dress and grind cycles and a re-grinding cycle is included for simple dimensional correction.  For the most exacting tolerance work the minimum dimensional increment is 0.0001mm and the machining envelope can accommodate work pieces up to 300mm wide x 1000mm in length.

“The ease of set up and programming was an important feature for us.  We have a long standing commitment to apprentice training at FSG (currently 12 apprentices) and they have found the ‘Easy’ control programme and its interactive features a very useful part of their training,” explains Ian Slaughter.  “When in full production the Ultramat Easy will run 16½ hours a day and we are already appreciating the increased capacity and capability of the machine,” he adds.

The second new Jones & Shipman addition is a Techmaster Easy 634 heavy duty surface grinder, again equipped with an Easy touchscreen control.  A feature of this machine is its ability to interpolate two axes simultaneously to enable precision grinding of complex shapes, profiles and surfaces. The operator is offered three modes of operation – manual, dress or grind – via a simple button control with automated compensated dressing on demand either in or out of the cycle.  “Again, this purchase was born out of our need for additional capacity but also our ability to react quickly to customer.”