Member News

Kennewell manufactures everything from parts for agricultural machinery to high-end motorsport and tattooing equipment, specialising in small batches. It is also heavily involved with the production of prototype parts to assist companies bring products to market. Established in 1995, the company has steadily grown and now has a total of 12 staff working over two shifts. Owner Brett Kennewell and Leading Hand Brett Klose acquired the Hydrafeed Barfeeder to retrofit to an existing CNC lathe and replace the existing pneumatic unit that had come with the unit. “Our old barfeeder had to be monitored constantly, so was very unproductive,” says Kennewell. “I really don’t like pneumatic equipment; the barfeeder we had has been unreliable and because it ran on compressed air, was expensive to run. Hydrafeed UK has developed a user-friendly unit with an additional productivity benefit over other barfeeders on the market. Once the bar size is set and the setup has been saved, there’s no need to open the cover again. Simply by calling up the program from the touch screen, the…

Romar Engineering is involved in medical device development and manufacture, with former and current partners including Cochlear, Resmed and Vaxxas. Although its stand featured everything from surgical aids to microfluidics, it had seen strong interest in its new DMG Mori Lasertec 65, a hybrid laser deposition welding and five-axis milling machine. “It’ll bring a lot of value to medical devices, to defence, across the industry, because we can print up to 15 different materials at once with this and we can print up to three different materials in the one component,” said Managing Director Neil Wilson. The machine is a $1.25m co-investment between Wilson’s company and the CSIRO. Wilson believes collaboration with public researchers is “critical”, noting Romar’s links with universities including University of Wollongong, Deakin and ANU. Andrew Donald Design Engineering (ADDE) had brought its new end-of-line palletiser, based on a Universal Robot UR10 machine mounted on a column and swing mechanism. General Manager Barry Hendy said the system only took hours to integrate and while the UR10…

Tim – or ‘Disko’ as he’s known to his mates – was born at just 24 weeks with cerebral palsy, and has had to contend with a number of ongoing health issues. In his early years he was hospitalised regularly, and was fed via a gastrostomy tube until the age of 17. Tim’s brain and his body movements have also been affected, with increased fatigue and stiffness as well as issues with brain/body communication. However, those setbacks have not deterred Tim from living life to the full. He completed secondary school and produces his own music. Most importantly, he began learning to swim at the age of four, and began swimming competitively when he was 10. Numerous contests and medals followed, culminating in his selection for the Australian Paralympics team and the chance to represent his country at the Rio games last year. Tim came away with three medals, including gold in the 100-metre S9 freestyle.…

“This has been a great exhibition here in Melbourne, and the first for EIF in attendance,” said Suzanne Agnello, EIF’s Australian Trade Lane Manager. “The entire EIF Team are extremely delighted to be part of AMTIL Network and the want to sincerely thank the Amtil team for such a very well-run event and look forward to the next one.” EIF are the AMTIL exclusive Service Partner for international freight forwarding for your import and export needs, both air freight and sea freight as well as Australian customs and quarantine requirements. EIF are a privately owned International freight forwarder who is a third-party logistics (3PL) provider that can offer you a comprehensive range of transportation solutions for air freight and ocean freight, both domestically and globally. EIF’s services will maintain efficiencies within your supply chain, enabling goods to be delivered where they are needed in the speed, accuracy…

The firm believes strongly in quality and design, and is constantly investing in research & development to ensure it continues to be a leading vessel and tank manufacturer. As part of this, they enlisted the external expertise of BOC to examine their workshops to address inefficiencies in their welding practices. BOC provided solutions that helped A&G Engineering deliver faster and better quality welds that have in some business areas increased output substantially. The challenges Moving to automated welding – A&G Engineering was welding dimple stainless steel sheets to regular stainless steel sheets by hand for their pressurised tankers at an operating speed of 220mm per minute. This at times created some visible inconsistencies in the welding process. Given the nature of this welding, with the main external sheet being only 2mm thick and the dimple plate…

The demands made on manufacturers in the aviation and aerospace industry are becoming ever-more extensive and complex. And what applies to production businesses also applies to the machining industry that provides them with the tools they require. To be more cost-efficient, manufacturers need to not only use tools with perfect performance and a long tool life, but also continuously optimise their machining solutions and processes. In this area in particular, Walter Tools has taken on the task of supporting its aerospace customers. The goal is to create complete solutions that address the complexity of the task and help to increase productivity and cost-efficiency. “Today customers expect their tool supplier to have a high level of expertise in all key operations that are carried out using its tools,” explains Thomas Schaarschmidt, Director Business & Application Development at Walter. “This reduces the increasing cost pressure and compensates for the loss of expertise which arises as a result of outsourcing a large number of tasks.” More specifically this means that, in addition to the tools required for the relevant…

Preparations for the show are now entering their final stages, with work now underway at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre to ensure everything is ready when the event begins on Tuesday. It marks the culmination of a long and complicated process in making Austech a reality, with the exhibition space fully booked well in advance, and pre-registrations from prospective visitors already very strong. According to AMTIL Event Manager and Austech organiser Kim Banks, the enthusiasm shown both by exhibitors and by people planning to visit the show, is indicative of an willingness across the industry to invest and build for the future. “We’ve definitely seen a big surge in confidence this time round,” says AMTIL Event Manager and Austech organiser Kim Banks. “We saw bookings come in a lot earlier than usual, filling the venue way ahead of schedule. What’s also very exciting is the number of exhibitors who are coming back to the show after not participating for the last few years. It’s all looking very exciting.” Held at…

An Okuma customer for more than 35 years, RC Williams Pty Ltd is a manufacturing company at the cutting edge of technology and automation. This company has doubled its business in the last 12 months and is very much a personalised family operation, with the family’s second generation –Robin, Sue, Nick and Sam Williams – running the company with a team of highly skilled precision engineers. “The recent installation of the latest Okuma Multus U4000 follows the successful use of the Okuma Multus B400-W,” says Sam Williams. “A general multi-function machine centre, designed to reduce set-up time by virtually eliminating repetitive fixturing, has reduced non-cutting time to a minimum. Along with high accuracy levels even in complex parts, it has made us very competitive and generated additional work. But this is just one of seven Okuma machines which consistently produce highly accurate components at speed with cost savings for us even of short runs.” The company takes full advantage of Okuma’s robotic automation, generous training programs, technical…

In comparison with machining steel, aluminium and its alloys require much less cutting force, and therefore the cutting edge of a milling tool experiences relatively low mechanical loading. For the purpose of this article, we refer to aluminium and its alloys as aluminium. Aluminium exhibits high thermal conductivity, and therefore the chips produced when machining aluminium transfer high levels of generated heat, resulting in significantly reduced thermal loading of the cutting edge. Due to these properties, milling aluminium is characterised by extremely high cutting speeds and feeds. Nonetheless, this does not guarantee that milling aluminium is quite so simple. The material characteristics of aluminium result in the formation of built-up edge (BUE) when machined. This unwelcome phenomenon increases the mechanical load on the cutting edge making efficient chip flow more difficult to achieve, affecting the balance of rotating tools and causing…

In its flexible extension ranges encompassing the five-axis machine with its dynamic NC swivel rotary table, the DMU 65 monoBLOCK masters all disciplines in milling technology, from roughing through to finishing at an uncompromisingly high level and at a very attractive price. With its DMU 65 monoBLOCK, DMG MORI is offering a world-class machine for all fields of industry. The uncompromisingly high quality of the DMU 65 monoBLOCK is apparent in its design details. In conjunction with the high-speed rotary axes of the NC swivel rotary table, these have resulted in a remarkable increase in dynamics, and, amongst others, the 45mm wide roller guides maximise process stability. Moreover, the DMU 65 monoBLOCK impresses with its three-point support for shortest possible start-up times. With a footprint of 8sqm, it is the most compact machine of its class. Despite the small space requirement, the DMU 65 monoBLOCK has an extremely spacious machining compartment. With axis paths of 735mm x 650mm x 560mm (in X, Y and Z), the entire NC…

Based in South Windsor, NSW, Nasa Stones specialises in creating high-quality stone products, from kitchen countertops to fireplaces to marble walls on the inside of elevators. The team at Nasa Stones needed a waterjet system to work as hard and efficiently as they did. Hmoozi visited a Techni Waterjet customer to evaluate a live waterjet, and knew immediately that Techni was the company he had been searching for. “I left the customer’s location and was excited about what I saw. I was impressed with the quality of the Techni product,” says Hmoozi. “Seeing the Quantum NXT electric servo pump and the PAC 60 in operation was truly what I was hoping to find. I’ve been doing my research. Techni Waterjet comes highly recommended.” The seven-year-old company has recently relocated to a larger facility. Incoming power supply was an issue for the new location, but it was not a problem for Techni Waterjet’s Quantum NXT electric servo pump and the Intec 713-G2…

Cutting tool data can in fact be gathered more accurately and used to create precise digital twin representations – a functionality that has become fundamental in the modern workflow to prevent errors at the machining stage. Today, such processes can be fully integrated with the user’s CAM software, and can be completed with a few simple clicks as part of an easy-to-use menu-driven process. In machining applications, it is not individual tool items such as toolholders, cutters and inserts that are used on machines, but tool assemblies. In many instances this creates a somewhat laborious task for the CAM programmer, where there exist several opportunities for error, not least failing to select the optimum tool items in the first instance. Furthermore, many typical tool assemblies can take up to an hour to create. With some components demanding the…

I worked in a machine shop from 14 years old. I did two years of vocational training, and at 16, I worked in a plastic injection moulding business. However, essentially, I’m self-taught. Although I enjoyed my work, my true passion was rallying, as a co-driver and navigator. I competed and won several big competitions, including the Spanish national championships. It was my interest in motorsport that brought Haas to my attention – through the company’s involvement in NASCAR. We only have one Haas machine – an ST-30Y turning centre with motorised tools and Y axis – but it has made a big difference to our activities.…