XYZ machining centre proves its worth at Alken Engineering

Alken Engineering
Alken Engineering

Alken Engineering is a long-term user of XYZ Machine Tools. It now has 10 XYZ ProtoTRAK mills and three XYZ ProTURN lathes on its capacity list, but for many years resisted purchasing any XYZ full CNC machines.


The company, part of the Alken Holdings Group, is a specialist machining and fabrication company that counts many blue-chip companies, such as Bentley Motors and Volvo, as customers, as well as working in the aerospace, power generation and general subcontract sectors.

While the majority of the High Peak, Derbyshire company’s work involves machining steel and more exotic materials, it also gets involved in components manufactured from aluminium and nylon. This work led to the purchase of its first XYZ LR (linear rail) machining centre.

“Even though the ProtoTRAK mills and lathes had been flawless, I hadn’t considered XYZ machining centres as I didn’t believe they could compete quality-wise, but when I had a demo of the new LR machines and the Siemens Shopmill control my eyes were opened,” says Paul Coverley, managing director, Alken Engineering.

“In addition to the capability of the machines, the Shopmill control also appealed as we machine one-offs to batch production and the Siemens control is perfect for that.”

The XYZ LR machines have also proved their worth for heavier machining work when the Alken Group won a contract to machine a series of connector blocks that would be used in the construction of a bridge linking the mainland to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall.

These connectors are machined from solid blocks of Duplex stainless steel, with the finished parts measuring up to 460mm x 237mm x 237mm with slots that are 135mm deep in places. The work came to Alken after ten other subcontractors had withdrawn from the contract due to the difficulty machining the parts.

As a result, Alken was faced with a tight deadline and capacity issues: “We knew that any delay would put the bridge project back, which was unacceptable to the main contractor, American Bridge, and English Heritage,” Mr Coverley explains.

“However, our initial concern was that the parts could have been described as unmachinable. Following discussions with our customer, Underhill Engineering, changes were made to the design. Once those issues were overcome, we were faced with machining the Duplex, particularly those slots.”

Initially, machining was carried out by two other companies within the Alken Group on what Mr Coverley describes as ‘high-end’ machining centres.

“I thought these companies had the equipment to handle this work, but we found ourselves falling behind as they struggled with the part’s volume and complexity. So we had to bring work in to Alken Engineering. The only capacity we had available was on our XYZ LR 500, 750 and 1000 machines.

“At this point there were still doubts that the XYZ LR VMC machines had the capability to handle materials such as Duplex, even though XYZ were telling us otherwise.”

With each of these connector blocks requiring between 70-80 hours of machining there was a lot at stake so Alken, along with XYZ and tooling supplier Ceratizit began to test the boundaries of what the LR machines were capable of.

To machine the slots the tooling involved an overhang of 4 x D using an indexable insert cutter with 12mm Dragonskin-coated button inserts running at 140m/minute, with .3mm/revolutions a tooth on the feed. Considering the material being cut both the machines and tooling produced the quality and finish required.

“The XYZ LR machining centres are producing these parts better, and quicker than those high-end machines we started with. As a result, we’ve got the project back on schedule and any doubts that I had about the capability of XYZ Machine Tools machining centres has disappeared.”

The LR range was introduced in 2017 and was the first full series of machining centres equipped with linear rail technology. XYZ had held off developing a linear rail machine as it did not believe that early systems were robust enough, however, recent developments in linear rail technology has seen these concerns eliminated.

These are highly capable machines with the ability to remove volumes of material, even with difficult to machine materials such as Duplex stainless steel.

There are three machines in the LR range: the XYZ 500 LR, 750 LR and 1,000 LR, with the number equating to the X-axis travel.

All machines feature an 8,000rpm 18 hp (13kW) spindle; 20m/minute traverse rates and a 12 position carousel-type toolchanger on the smallest machine, with a 20 position carousel (24 position arm-type optional) on the two larger variants.

XYZ Machine Tools www.xyzmachinetools.com

Alken Engineering www.alkenengineering.co.uk

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