BROADCASTS.com

Founded in 1967 Alucast Ltd is a casting and machining company that operates out of a 50,000sq/ft facility in Wednesbury in the heart of the Black Country. In 2018, the company witnessed rapid growth with an additional £3m of business and to accommodate this, the West Midlands Company bought four new 5-axis Quasar machining centres from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG).

With 105 staff, Alucast specialises in aluminium castings and its main business is sand, gravity and pressure foundry castings as well as a low pressure facility and a machine shop. With a rapid influx of work, the company invested in four 5-axis machining centres from ETG to provide much needed capacity. Upon reviewing the marketplace, Alucast selected the Quasar MF500C, two MF630C machines and a MF830C high-speed machining centres.

Tony Sartorius says: “We had to install a new machining cell as we picked up a lot of new work and our customers are moving into ‘light-weighting’. What that means is that they need lightweight materials such as aluminium and we have been at the forefront of that work. Last year, we picked up £3m of new work, which meant we got 96 new product introductions. That means we needed the machining capacity to be able to do it. Whilst we had machines here, we needed to expand in that area and that is why we decided to go with Quasar machines from ETG to make sure that we had the capacity when the volumes came on-stream.”

Referring to the processes on the new Quasar machines, Mr Sartorius says: “The machining process is relatively normal with milling and drilling, but we are working with complex casted shapes now. The shapes being made now are replacing complex welded assemblies from heavier materials that were once commonplace. The shapes we make in castings are far more complex than they used to be; and that means we need to use 5-axis machining technology. What that enables us to do, is complete the machining operation at relatively low cost in maybe 2-hits with faster throughput.”

As a company that works with castings that often have thin walled areas, MTD magazine asked if chatter and stability is an issue on the new Quasar machines. Mr Sartorius states confidently: “The Quasar machines handle this very well, but our engineers are working closely with the ETG engineers, so when they design a process for machining, the machine itself ensures the castings are held correctly and the speeds and feeds are optimised to ensure we get the maximum productivity when making parts whilst addressing the issues of chatter and vibration.”

As a company that has a number of machine tools on-site from various vendors, MTD magazine asked why the change to Quasar machines from ETG. Mr Sartorius says: “We felt the need to move into 5-axis machining and the 5-axis Quasar machines from ETG gave us the value for money that we wanted with the facilities needed as well as a route to expand.”

Referring to the company growth, Mr Sartorius continues: “We picked up £3m of business and that means we have to have the facilities for that growth. In terms of payback, we are looking for a good return from our machines, but we are in the early stages at the moment. We feel the new machines will give us less downtime than older existing machines that has breakdowns that cause us problems. So, the serviceability and long-term life of the machines is important to us and the reliability has so far been very good.”

Mentioning the journey into 5-axis machining, Mr Sartorius concludes: “There was no doubt a learning process for everybody involved, but generally the feedback from the guys is that the machines are good to use, easy to use and the operators find them straightforward. Additionally, the team at ETG have been very helpful and supportive at every step of the journey.”