Life on the edge

Having established itself as a laser cutting specialist when the company was formed ten years ago, East Anglia-based Wrightform has now enhanced its offering to customers by being the first subcontractor in the UK to make use of a Timesavers rotary brush deburring and finishing system.

Wrightform is celebrating its tenth anniversary having been formed to supply laser cut parts to its now sister company Wrightfield, a manufacturer of food processing and conveying systems. Over the past ten years it has also developed a thriving subcontract laser cutting, folding, and oxy-flame cutting service for a diverse range of customers in the offshore, food processing, architectural, marine, transport, and agricultural engineering sectors.

Part of its success is down to the management's desire to provide the best available service and this is achieved by consistently investing in equipment – such as two Trumpf laser processing systems – and using only the best quality materials including high purity gases and high grade sheet steel.

Ken Rose, Wrightform's general manager explains: “We could save money by buying cheaper, especially when it comes to materials and consumables, but we see this as a false economy and the possible savings are far outweighed by lost production time or reduced productivity by using lesser quality items.

“Our aim is to supply parts that are as good, if not better than can be manufactured by our customers. That way we will continue to be a preferred supplier to them.” This philosophy is backed by Wrightform's commitment to stocking a wide range of sheet material ready for any order for existing customers. The company even relocated its flame cutting operation in a separate building to laser cutting to avoid process contamination.

All of this has given the company a competitive advantage when supplying laser and flame cut components, however over the past ten years the ‘wow' factor of having a laser has been diminished as more and more competitors enter that market. It was this, in part, that brought Wrightform to look at the Timesavers rotary brush system from Ellesco.

“We had worked with Ellesco for many years as they provide service support for our 20 year old Timesavers Grindingmaster deburring machine, and through this relationship we became aware of the advantages and benefits that rotary brush deburring can bring to us as a supplier and to our customers. The ability to add value to components and improve quality while at the same time dramatically reducing the amount of manual deburring required is a major plus for us,” says Mr Rose.

The Timesavers machine installed at Wrightform features three main elements: a hard front roller and abrasive belt that removes heavier burrs or surface discrepancies; a set of eight rotary brushes that create a radiused edge prep on the sheet both on outer and inner edges (holes); and a softer wheel and fine belt that puts a grain onto the sheet if required.
While laser profiling leaves components virtually burr free, some small burrs and sharp edges still remain which pose a handling risk. To remove these by hand is both time consuming and, under health and safety legislation, poses a risk to operators removing them using vibratory tools. The development of the rotary brush system by Timesavers, based on a rotating orbital brush concept allows users to achieve a high quality finish and precise radiusing.

As standard, the capacity to deburr and radius sheet components is up to 1,350mm wide and 150mm thick in a single pass. This situation is aided by the fact that Timesavers employs eight rotary brushes giving users the option of increased productivity by feeding parts faster, or going for heavier radiusing.

If used alone without the deburring belts the rotary brushes remove the minimum amount of material making it ideal for plastic coated components, aluchrome and Zintec, while at the same time heavy plate and oxy or plasma cut pieces are all given controllable radiused edges, including small holes in the centre of the parts.

“The new machine from Ellesco replaces our original Timesavers machine that only had the capacity for deburring and graining,” Mr Rose concludes. “The added ability to radius processed sheets is a major benefit and is already a talking point with customers, with one sending all existing stock of lasered parts back for processing on the new machine.

“When we started the business ten years ago we were among a handful of subcontractors offering laser cutting but now having a laser on its own doesn't make you stand out from the crowd. By adding the capability to perform edge preparation with the Timesavers rotary brush machine we are once again providing customers with that little extra over our competitors.”

Wrightform
www.wrighform.com

Ellesco
www.ellesco.co.uk