Mollart wins £1.1 million deep-hole drilling machine order from American customer
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Mollart Engineering has won a £1.1 million order to supply what is believed to be the most sophisticated deep-hole drilling machine on the market for producing cooling holes in stainless steel mould plates for a North American moulding company.
"This is a very high specification deep-hole drilling machine, combining many advanced aspects of gundrilling technology," explained managing director Guy Mollart. "However, it also incorporates high levels of flexibility to accommodate different specifications the customer will apply to its mould plate designs."
The 6-axis, column-type Mollart FMC machine has a rotary cross table with twin 800 mm pallets. The 6,000 rpm spindle has automatic toolchange that is able to include full length gundrills, a revolving turret bush change and retractable whip guides.
It will produce cooling holes between 6 and 50 mm diameter by up to 1,300 mm deep in mould plates that can have up to 144 cavities.
Using a total of 150 tools, depending on the specification of the mould plate, the machine will also perform second operation cycles to finish water galleries, perform milling and helical milling, thread milling and create counterbores and a variety of tap threaded holes for connectors. An engraving cycle will also be performed.
The machine will provide additional capacity for the customer, who has already installed five other Mollart special-purpose deep hole machines over the period 1996 and 2004.
