IMTS Grinding Technology Ltd | Sales & Information T (01634) 844477
Special Purpose Machines
IMTS are often contacted about grinding projects because a customer has been unable to locate a standard mass produced machine to manufacture their specific requirements without having to make compromises.
We are often supplied with a finished component (to reduce manufacturing time), or drawings to produce the component. IMTS will formulate a process to manufacture the component using IMTS software design. One example of this is:
IMTS took a 1968 Tschudin Cylindrical grinder as a base and re-engineered it into a 5-axis CNC Knife Grinder. The machine now has the addition of a CNC dresser plus in-feed, also a moving wheelhead (X axis), moving table (Z axis) and a C axis that swivels the part about the wheels centre line.
The blank material is continually fed from a 10,000 ft. coil of stock that is indexed into the machine. To grind the knife or saw blade, the various relief parameters are entered into the CNC which computes the wheel form; this is then automatically generated by the dresser. This machine cut the cycle time for knife grinding from 9 to 3.6 seconds. The machine can run unmanned for up to three weeks, after which the grinding wheel is worn and needs replacing.
Other Special Purpose Projects undertaken by IMTS include:
- CNC Cam Relief Grinding
- Grinding of Ferrite Rings for television tubes
- Fuel Injection Needles
- Turbine Blades for jet engines
- Turbine Vanes for jet engines
- Special Purpose Carbide and PCD tools
- Special Purpose Carbide and PCD Core Drills for the oil industry.
- Glass Prisms.
