Lathe turns out product variety for autoparts firm

A leading motor factory in the south of England, which successfully expanded its business in to fabricating and machining parts for vehicle operators, is producing turned parts "better and quicker".

A leading motor factory in the south of England, which successfully expanded its business in to fabricating and machining parts for vehicle operators and other industries, is producing turned parts "better and quicker" since acquiring its Harrison Alpha 1550S manual/CNC lathe.

Aghabridge , of Rochester, Kent, which supplies vehicle parts to hauliers, vehicle repairers throughout the Kent, Surrey, Sussex and London region, uses the Alpha 1550S, with its 554mm swing over bed, to produce a wide range of components, from hydraulic rams to flywheels.

Director of Aghabridge, Ceri McGregor-Davies, said the company opted for the advantages of a proven and successful British-built lathe from Harrison's main distributor RK International Machine Tools, of Erith, Kent, after experiencing difficulties with reliability and parts supply for an existing non-British machine.

He said: "The Alpha 1550S has been extremely reliable, and it is doing the job much better and quicker than our previous lathe.

Because it is able to be used as a totally CNC machine, the operator can set it up to carry out a turning operation and then move to another job.

It has made our business significantly more efficient in that way.

We are a very flexible company, which is why we are successful in attracting a lot of business from a wide range of customers who require repairs or replacement parts, including large haulage companies, owner-drivers, fork lift and crane companies and even individuals needing parts for private cars.

Many are now realizing that new parts can be produced to a very high quality, including one-offs.

David Smith, Harrison's sales director, said: "The Alpha 1550S is one of Harrison's class-leading S1000 range, which combines the virtues of a high quality conventional toolroom lathe, namely ease-of-operation, build quality, strength and reliability and supreme cutting performance with the production flexibility and capabilities of a full ISO (CNC) machine.

Our many customers, like Aghabridge , have already discovered the improvements that the Alpha 1550S brings to their business in terms of improved turning performance and finish quality, efficiency, manufacturing capacity and speed of producing single or multiple turned parts.

Many companies have grown their businesses by attracting extra business thanks to the capabilities of an advanced manual and CNC such as the Alpha 1550S.

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