Rimor Enhances
Machine Capability with ITC
To guarantee that it meets the lead times, exacting quality
and surface finish requirements of its' world class customer
base, Rimor Limited in Denmead, Hampshire has employed Air Turbine
Tooling from ITC.
Formed in 1979, Rimor manufactures high precision components
and complete modular assemblies providing its customers with
a complete package that includes prototyping, development, production
and testing. Rimor utilizes state-of-the-art CNC machine tools
as part of its continuous investment program. To compliment
its array of machine tools, the Air Turbine can be attached
to most of the Rimor machine tools to provide spindle speeds
up to 40,000rpm.
The 110 plus employee private company provides its' services
to a customer base that includes the major players in the subsea
Oil and Gas, Motorsport including Formula 1, Aerospace, Defence
and Semi conductor markets. Rimor has benefited immensely from
the Air Turbine and it has enabled the ISO 9001 registered company
to improve its productivity, surface finishes and reduce lead
times.
With a customer base intent upon cost down programs from fast
turnaround supply, the Air Turbine Tooling has been attached
to the 12,000rpm spindle Bridgeport VMC vertical machining centers
to increase the speeds of its cutting tools. As Rimor Chief
Engineer Mr Steve Camburn comments: "Most of our machining
centers have a maximum spindle speed of 12,000rpm. At this speed,
our high performance cutting tools continually broke and were
inconsistent in their performance."
The Air Turbine supplied with a regulator and air cleaning system
has been retrofitted to a jig that enables it to rapidly be
attached to the Bridgeport & Mazak machining and turning
centers at Rimor. This rapid attachment enables almost any machine
to have a 40,000rpm spindle speed capable of accommodating cutting
tool shanks up to 6mm diameter.
"The Air Turbine is predominantly used for machining digitized
surfaces. The increased spindle speed not only gives us reliability
with our cutting tools, it also allows us to machine at faster
speeds and feeds. Working faster with smaller depths of cut
enables us to drastically reduce our production times,"
continues Mr Camburn.
An example of enhanced productivity has recently been demonstrated
on a bearing carrier component. Using a 2mm ball nosed cutting
tool to machine 16mm deep circular kidney slots, Rimor was completing
a part with 6 slots in just over three hours. Using the same
cutting tool at enhanced speeds and feeds with the Air Turbine
enabled Rimor to complete the heat treated steel part in less
than 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Not only is the productivity of vital importance, the stable
and predictable life span of the cutting tools provides the
company with confidence that it can manufacture parts without
consistent monitoring of the machining process.
Mr Camburn continues: "We use a number of ITC's Cyber Series
carbide cutting tools - and these have worked extremely well
with the Air Turbine. Our productivity has been improved, our
downtime has been reduced and the surface finish of components
has been improved considerably. We frequently use the 3mm diameter
ball nose Cyber series cutter from ITC. Working at a 200m/min
feed rate with a 21,000rpm spindle speed, the surface finish
of our components is exceptional - a significant improvement
over our previous processes." |
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Rimor
has benefited immensely from the Air Turbine and it has
enabled the ISO 9001 registered company to improve its
productivity, surface finishes and reduce lead times |
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