The first of 11 bespoke Vertical Turning Lathes being built for Sheffield Forgemasters’ new machining facility, has passed a milestone test with its German manufacturers ahead of shipping it to the UK.
Thew machines are being designed and built by WaldrichSiegen, and will be capable of working with pieces weighing up to 120 tonnes.
John Cocker, Recapitalisation Machine Tool Lead at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “The completion of factory acceptance testing for our first new Vertical Turning Lathe is a critical milestone for Sheffield Forgemasters and essentially underpins our confidence in WaldrichSiegen to deliver the remaining machines for our recapitalisation programme.
“Despite the size of these machines, the VTL has the capability to work to the finest tolerances and deliver significantly improved efficiency gains.
“The machine has advanced probing technology that will improve our machining and inspection accuracies when machining large forgings and castings for the defence sector.
“The VTL underwent highly rigorous FAT procedures to ensure absolute operational accuracy before shipment to the UK and to see a machine of this scale and complexity, assembled and tested to such exacting standards, is a very exciting development for us, and for UK manufacturing.”
Sheffield Forgemasters’ new machine shop will cover 35,000m2, housing 21 new heavy-duty machine tools from Waldrich Siegen and nine large cranes to deliver crucial components for the UK defence programme. It will be the most advanced facility of its kind in Europe, providing highly-skilled jobs for decades to come and work has already started on a 21-acre plot of brownfield land in the Meadowhall district of Sheffield, which the company purchased last year to house the facility. Piling for that development is 70% complete.
