£600,000 French order for Broadbent Stanley

The French company placed the initial enquiry with a number of manufacturers globally, with a basic requirement for two, 16" (400 mm) hollow spindle lathes with 1,000 mm between centres. The machines were to come complete with auto turrets, front and rear chucks, plus integrated auto oil pipe handling equipment, for installation at the company's maintenance facility in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Broadbent Stanley managing director Graham Thomas said: "Although we have a good name in the industry for our oil country lathes, we knew Vallourec would be a hard nut to crack, so rather than just quote against their requirement, we jumped on an aeroplane to go and see them to discuss their exact needs." This revealed that the customer didn't have the resource in the new facility to tool and prove-out the parts, so a proposal for a turnkey package, including the supply of tooling, fixturing, prove-out, training and installation. An order followed for two of Broadbent Stanley's model SA 40 heavy duty CNC, slant bed lathes, both with 16" (406 mm) hollow spindles and 1,200 mm between centres. Schunk 800 mm front and rear-mounted chucks, 12-station Baruffaldi turrets, plus Broadbent Stanley's own patented thread repair software also feature.