One of the latest installations at the Magellan Aerospace plant in Bournemouth is a Studer S41 CNC universal cylindrical grinding machine.
Magellan, which is a global manufacturer of aerospace systems and components has its hub at Wrexham, from which it supplies wing components up to 22 metres in length, to nearby Airbus.
Its Bournemouth factory acts as a satellite manufacturing facility and specialises in the production of wing rib-structures of less than 2 meters in length. The Bournemouth factory also manufactures items such as pintle pins, undercarriage pins and split chrome halves, all of which need high-precision grinding to achieve the required demanding standards of accuracy and surface finish.
“Throughout the world the Magellan operates some of the most innovative CNC machine tools currently available. In addition to boosting our levels of productivity, the use of these advanced machines helps us to maintain our exacting levels of accuracy and quality”, explained Keith Summers, Magellan Aerospace Engineering Manager, Special Projects European Operations. “Before any purchase, as well as considering the ability of any new manufacturing aid, we also take into account the levels of service and technical back-up provided by the vendor concerned. When recently considering the purchase of a new CNC universal cylindrical grinding machine for our Bournemouth facility, in addition to the proposed machine’s capabilities, as ever, we also took into consideration all of the important technical support and service aspects of the purchase”.
“Having been enthusiastic users of Studer S30 and S21 grinders, purchased from Advanced Grinding Supplies Ltd, not only have we been delighted with the performance of these machines, we have also been impressed by the support and advice received from the supplier”.
“The speed and flexibility of our new Studer S41 is already helping in our on-going quest for productivity improvements. As well as increasing our current component grinding capacity, our new Studer machines generous between centres and centre height capacities, in addition to its large weight bearing capability will ensure that it is able to undertake the precision grinding all foreseeable future components.”
The S41, as purchased by Magellan Aerospace in Bournemouth, is an advanced CNC universal cylindrical grinding machine that is designed to accommodate large workpieces weighing up to 250 kg. The S41 has distances between centres of 1000/1600 mm and centre heights of 225/275 mm.
The S41’s wheelhead has an integrated B-axis that swivels automatically and enables the use of up to four grinding wheels. This feature ensures that workpieces can be fully machined in the same clamping, resulting in superior precision and minimal auxiliary times.