MEASUREMENT OF AN EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE BORE

Unilathe, the prominent Stoke-on-Trent based Engineering Company has enjoyed a period of meteoric growth since being established by its present owners in 1977. From the company’s humble beginning with two men and three machines based in a 1,000 sq ft unit, Unilathe has grown into today's highly professional, multi-faceted company employing over 100 personnel on a 5-acre business park.

With a demanding client base that reads like a ‘who’s who’ in the Petro-Chemical, Off Highway Specialised Vehicles, Rail, Mining and Aerospace industries, stringent quality assurance procedures in accordance with the standard BSEN ISO:9001 2000 requirements, form an essential part of this progressive company's management system.

To help ensure that customers continue to receive the standard of product quality that the company has earned a reputation for, in addition to regular investments in new CNC Machine Tools, Unilathe make regular investments in state of the art measuring instruments. A case in point is the extremely unusual gauge recently purchased from Bowers UK. When faced with the need to measure the length of exceptionally large shafts, the company struggled to find an instrument with the required accuracy and capacity. A chance conversation with Richard Briggs, Bowers’ local Sales Engineer, unearthed the ideal solution to their measuring problem. Bowers were able to supply a 10 ft capacity Ultra-Light Sylvac Caliper that proved ideal for the company’s application. Aiding the revolutionary digital gauge’s accuracy, strength and lack of weight, the Sylvac instrument’s main beam is constructed of advanced composites, whilst its contact faces are coated in Titanium giving excellent wear resistance. Operator repeatability is helped by the caliper’s constant measuring force, and ease of reading is aided by the gauge’s large digital display.

Company Quality Manger Jeff Bratt enthused, “As we were previously using one of our Coordinate Measuring Machines to measure our large shafts, transporting the parts and CMM time became a major problem. Before we discovered the Sylvac caliper, we despaired of ever finding a gauge with the capacity to measure our shafts. Since using the gauge, valuable CMM time has been released and measuring times have been slashed. To further speed-up our shaft measuring process we have constructed 2 V-block saddles, containing alignment slots to accept the new gauge, and allow us to check the required lengths. Our new lightweight caliper will help to ensure that our valued customers continue to receive the highest quality components from Unilathe.”

Published on July 02, 2008 12:33 updated on October 13, 2008 21:54