Machine category 04
Metal working machines
Lathes, drills and grinders — the machines a workshop is built around and the ones it keeps longest.
Not every job needs a control system. A great deal of Egyptian manufacturing is repair, modification and one-off fabrication, and for that work a well-built conventional machine in trained hands is still faster than programming a part you will make once.
These are also the machines that stay in a workshop for decades, which makes the availability of spare parts and a service engineer a bigger factor in the decision than the purchase price.
What it is for
- Turned shafts, pins, bushings and adaptors
- Repair and re-machining of worn components
- Drilling and reaming to position
- Surface and cylindrical grinding to a finish
- One-off parts for machines out of production
How to choose
Centre height and between-centres set the ceiling
These two numbers decide what will ever fit on the machine. Everything else can be worked around; these cannot.
Spindle bore matters more than people expect
If you feed bar stock, the bore decides your maximum diameter and therefore whether a job is one setup or three.
Conventional, or CNC?
One-offs and repairs favour conventional. Repeat batches favour CNC. Many workshops run both and route work by batch size rather than by machine preference.
Ask about parts before you ask about price
A machine you will keep for twenty years is a twenty-year relationship with whoever supplies its bearings, belts and electricals.
Questions we are asked
Do you carry spare parts for older machines?
Spares and consumables are a standing part of the business, and for machines we supplied we keep the details on file so a replacement is identified from the machine, not from a guess.
Tell us the part you need to make
An engineer reads every request. Usually the same working day.
Related
- CNC machines Milling, turning, drilling, wire cut and EDM — the machines that hold a tolerance while the operator does something else.
- Welding & cutting MIG, TIG and plasma — the joint is where the part either holds or fails, and the machine decides which.
- Industrial tooling & machine spare parts The machine is the investment. The right tooling and reliable spare-parts availability are what keep production running and reduce costly downtime.