Following the success of Mollart Engineering’s initial installation of a turnkey project around a BTA deep hole drilling machine in an Eastern European aerospace contractor for producing a series of deep and blind holes in a range of aircraft actuation devices, the company has now ordered a second identical machine worth in excess of £380,000.
Said sales Director Ian Petitt: “The original order delivered two years ago was won on our turnkey project engineering capability against other European machine suppliers. Now in order to meet rapidly increasing demands for its range of devices, plus the high utilisation and reliability achieved in the deep hole drilling process, we were very quickly shortlisted for the second follow-on order.”
Indeed, he maintains: “Once commissioned, reliability has been very high and we have had no warranty claims registered against the first Mollart HDI-1500 BTA machine.” It is producing a series of blind and through holes between 20 mm and 47 mm diameter in pre-heat treated, solid stainless steel bar where holes can be up to 1,200 mm deep. Geometric tolerances are within 0.2 mm for straightness, 0.05 mm TIR for concentricity and 0.025 mm for roundness with surface finish within 0.8 micro-metres Ra.
The 22 kW HDI-1500 BTA machine has a capacity from 18 mm to 50 mm diameter by 1,500 mm hole depth with the high performance BTA process tending to be used in preference to gundrilling on larger diameters and heavier duty applications. The process involves high flow rates of filtered coolant being pumped under pressure between the wall of a pressure drill tube and drill bushing to lubricate the drill head. Once in the cutting zone, the empowered coolant flushes and evacuates the chips back through the centre of the drill tube back into the reservoir.
The Mollart Engineering group of companies has recently been awarded the AS9100 Aerospace Industry Standard.
