One of the repercussions of Covid-19 has been a widespread discussion about bringing more manufacturing back to the UK, and rightly so in the view of workholding and automation specialist 1st Machine Tool Accessories. But is reshoring large amounts of production realistic in the short term, or is industry unprepared to cope with the higher […]

As industry in the UK and Ireland emerges from the pandemic lockdown, improvements in production efficiency will be essential to maintain competitiveness in a global marketplace. Many original equipment manufacturers and the subcontractors in their supply chains will be pitching for sales in an environment characterised by fewer business opportunities in the short term, suppliers […]

In 2019 the Japanese manufacturer Kitagawa introduced the first in a new range of compact, general purpose rotary tables, the MK-series (www.1mta.com/product/mk-series/), for adding a rigid fourth CNC axis to a 3-axis vertical machining centre. One year later the MK200 has been joined by a second model, the MK250, with significantly uprated performance. Availability in […]

Designed to reduce set-up times on lathes, the new BR-series of 3-jaw chucks from Japanese firm Kitagawa are capable of a gripping accuracy of 0.01 mm TIR (total indicator reading) or less when using optional T-Nuts Plus jaws. Repeatability of jaw exchange is within the same tolerance, even on the largest chuck. They are manufactured […]

US-manufactured CHICK System 5 workholding equipment, supplied in the UK through sole agent 1st Machine Tool Accessories, Salisbury, (www.1mta.com) is helping to increase productivity and efficiency in the machine shop of Axminster Tools & Machinery (www.axminster.co.uk), located in Axminster, Devon. The company is an on-line and high street retailer of tools and machinery that it […]

Nothing but rotational plastic components are machined in batches from 30 to 20,000 at the Hertfordshire factory of subcontractor Plastic Turned Parts (PTP), which in four years to the end of 2019 doubled turnover and invested more than £750,000 in six new CNC turning centres. Five of them were delivered by Citizen Machinery, four Cincom […]

Efficient workpiece clamping for 5-axis machining Salisbury-based 1st Machine Tool Accessories (www.1mta.com) will show for the first time in the UK the new Kitagawa Swift Klamp, a rigid workholding product that uses the proven HSK tool interface to provide a secure, low interference, quick-change clamping arrangement that resists bending forces generated during metalcutting operations. Designed […]

Following the launch earlier this year of the manual Swift Klamp HSK workholding system for use on machining centres, 1st Machine Tool Accessories (www.1mta.com) has introduced a new robotic loading and unloading arrangement based on the same principle. It was demonstrated at EMO 2019 on the stand of Kitagawa, for which 1st MTA acts as […]

Subcontract machining of plastic parts constitutes the vast majority of output at the Gloucester factory of Stratos Precision Engineering (www.stratosengineering.co.uk), where the production of a particular component was causing problems that were exacerbated by the need to produce around 5,000 per year. It is an acrylic manifold block for a flow control device that previously […]

The Japanese manufacturer Kitagawa, represented in Britain and Ireland by sole sales agent 1st Machine Tool Accessories, has introduced the first in a new MK-series of general purpose rotary tables. The MK200, which has a 200 mm diameter faceplate, features increased holding torque compared with the MR-series table that has been superseded. The result is […]