A company that has made models and prototypes for customers that include Bentley, Virgin Atlantic, Lamborghini and the original Star Wars film has invested further in CNC machining.
To win these projects Letchworth-based Ogle Models & Prototypes applies capabilities that include both expert model making and hand crafting alongside modern technology such as industrial 3D printing, vacuum casting and CNC machining. To keep abreast of this technology, the company recently purchased a FANUC ROBODRILL D21LiA5.
Managing Director Len Martin says: "We bought the ROBODRILL, because we are always on a quest to make things faster and with better quality, and what we currently have is a lot of other machines that are ordinary 3-axis CNC machines. These are basic machines and we wanted to move our business on and produce much higher quality parts at greater speed. It's a drive for everyone to be more competitive and make parts quicker."
As a business, Ogle Models only manufactures prototypes and small quantities. Mr Martin says: "We don't do production runs, it’s all one-off and small quantity work. Therefore, you could say production time is less relevant and it's all down to programming. The new machine runs faster and produces a better finish than some of our existing machines, but even if we did have a small batch of 20-off, the FANUC is at least twice as fast as our other machines. Added to this, the quality and accuracy is also a huge factor.
"Primarily, the company uses model board on all its CNC machine tools. However, the FANUC ROBODRILL has been tasked with machining everything from model board through to plastic, aluminium and steel."
To give an example, Mr Martin says: "We undertook a project to make aluminium paddles for a car with plastic interior paddles, as the customer preferred the feel and look of a polished aluminium finish. We started by machining the job from solid aluminium billets on one of our older machines, but halfway through the job we took delivery of the new ROBODRILL. We then transferred the job to the FANUC ROBODRILL, and by doing this, the FANUC produced the paddles twice as fast with a far superior surface finish."
One of the company’s model engineers, Ian Taylor, added that it was important that the machine was fast, rigid and powerful.
"We need this combination of attributes, as one day we could be machining a very soft material like model board or plastic, and the next day it could be aluminium, brass or even steel. I need a very big variety of options and the ROBODRILL gives us this, especially with the speed control feature that gives me complete control when it comes to operations, such as drilling or tapping, for instance.
"Very often, we do very long programs and run our machines unmanned overnight. It’s quite frequent that I will have a 16-hour machining job that will be set at the end of the shift to run unmanned overnight. With the 850 by 410mm table, I also have the facility to set up multiple parts, as a lot of the work we do is quite small. This means we can have a batch of parts produced overnight."