The fleet of CNC machinery at Allspeeds’ Accrington manufacturing facility has been further enhanced with the addition of a new Doosan CNC horizontal machining centre.

With a spindle speed of up to 14,000 rpm the 5100 features an automatic tool changer capable of holding 60 tools and changing tools in 1.5 seconds!

Keith Elliot, Engineering Director, said, “The Doosan HP5100 horizontal machining centre has increased our effective capacity by more than one third, and alleviated a production bottleneck that has been a regular problem to our manufacturing lead times. The size, spindle speed, and high volume swarf management make it particularly efficient at handling out aluminium jack and cutter products.”

Praising the team at Allspeeds, Keith said, “The Allspeeds management team are extremely grateful to the production team for their part in this development. They have unlocked the potential of this new asset and achieved excellent results in a very short time.”

36ft sucker rod pumps start their journey!

Destined for a customer in Syria, the 40ft boxes containing 20 x 36ft barrels
and sucker rod pumps were safely loaded on to their transport at Allspeeds’
head office in Lancashire.

Too large to be shipped in the hold, these boxes will be transported on the deck
of the freight ship as they travel to Syria. The boxes will first travel to Belgium,
before loading on deck and making their way onto the high seas!

Due to enhanced manufacturing development, Allspeeds (through the Millingford brand) can now offer 36ft barrels, an increase on the 24ft products available
until now.

Mike Holyhead, Allspeeds’ MD said, “We have seen an increased demand for our Millingford products recently and we are very proud that our customer has chosen Millingford to manufacture their pumps and barrels. I was recently told by a potential client that they had borrowed a Millingford Pump to run tests alongside a competitor’s product. They were very impressed by the longer life obtained from the Millingford pump estimated at a ten times greater lifetime. We have been greatly encouraged by this endorsement of the quality of our products.”

The PUMA offers the following benefits:

	Y axis, live tooling with full milling capability.
	Subspindle (6000rpm, to complete the second operation without handling the component).
	Magazine bar feed (1 metre, max dia. 65mm).
	Parts catcher.
	Swarf conveyor.

Manufacturing Director, Keith Elliot explained ‘The PUMA is the right machine for Allspeeds. The PUMA will relieve bottlenecks around the factory and as a result lead times will be reduced.’

Greg Pope MP recently walked the breadth of Nicaragua to raise money for the British Heart Foundation and the Peace and Hope Trust, which works with some of the poorest people in Central America.

The 140 mile trek from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast included climbing Mount Concepcion, a live volcano over 5000 ft high!

Allspeeds supported Greg’s campaign and invited Greg to visit the new office
and factory.

Managing Director, Mike Hollyhead commented ‘Well done to Greg for completing the trek and raising over £5000 for charity.’

A recent addition to the Allspeeds team is Darren Pilkington, who will be working within the Engineering department as a Staff Engineer.

Darren completed his apprenticeship 10 years ago and until recently was working as a Machine Shop Supervisor where his duties included programming and setting horizontal and vertical machining centres on 3, 4 and 5 axis machines using Fanuc, Heidenhain and Seimens operating systems, whilst overseeing the workshop as a whole.

Engineering Director, Rodney Sleigh stated ‘ With more and more demand from our customers to provide solutions to their problems we are excited to add someone with Darren’s skills and knowledge to our Engineering department resource.’

Client: Oceaneering, a subsea technology company based in Houston, Texas.

Background: In August of last year, Hurricane Katrina hit America’s Gulf coast, damaging and destabilising oil platforms, which are tethered to the sea-bed by steel ropes. Oceaneering were contracted to carry out the repairs.

Problem: To find a cutter capable of slicing through 190mm solid steel rope.

Solution: Webtool built an industry first within four weeks, a cutter capable of using 200 tonnes of pressure to slice through 190mm solid steel ropes in under two minutes!

Client: A design challenge came courtesy of an Airforce operating F16 fighters.

Problem: To find a lightweight jack capable of lifting both the nose and main wheel of F16 fighter planes.

Solution: Tangye modified a jack from their existing product line. The base of a 20 tonne Hydralite with a 6” stroke was extended and the claw and ram were modified to perform the required operation.

Problem: To find an inexpensive method of re-railing, which was highly portable and simple to operate.

Solution: Tangye designed and built a compact traverse base unit with carrying handles, which accommodated a 30 tonne, 12” Hydralite jack with a screwed ram.