Everything about the new 2-axis BSA Churchill Viper CNC lathe is large. With an installed weight of 25 tonnes it is 8 m long by 3.3 m wide and stands 3.5 m high. The 18 inch chuck has a spindle bore of 130 mm and through bore of 115 mm, and is driven via a two-speed gearbox by a 37 kW motor.

Managing director, Stuart Grant, states: "This investment allows us to move into specific niche areas such as oil and gas drilling equipment. We already have experience of machining data logging equipment for oil exploration, but now we can produce the larger parts required for oil extraction. The parts that require our drilling expertise tend to start at 1.5 m long and can be much longer, up to 10 m long in fact. However, the majority of what is required fits in the 1.5 m to 4 m size band, which is ideally served by the 4 m slant bed on the new lathe. Customers in this sector tend to specify high grade stainless steels, which are very tough; the lathe copes with these easily, so it will just eat through free cutting materials."

Premier has also identified two other markets that can be supported by this size of lathe. The first is the mining industry, which requires hydraulic systems for structural support, as well as general hydraulic equipment. Produced from En40, these parts will be chrome plated after machining to provide corrosion resistance. And, the second is aircraft landing gear. "We have historically produced parts for landing gear assemblies, but we now have the capacity to look at the landing gear itself. Parts such as the stanchions are cut from aircraft grade materials including titanium, and the new lathe has been designed specifically to efficiently cut difficult materials such as high nickel steels, P550, Inconel and so on," says Stuart Grant.

As well as final machining operations the new lathe can be used to prepare the bar stock prior to drilling, true the bar back to size or true back to bore following drilling and subsequent material enhancements such as hardening. Specified with an SMW SLU5 hydraulic CNC steady capable of supporting longer workpieces from 45 to 310 mm diameter, and for increased accuracy with minimum component deflection during cutting, the new lathe is fitted with a Fanuc controller that is the preferred CNC system on the company's shopfloor.

Other machining capabilities at Premier had already been increased and locating the new lathe within the 21,000 ft2 facility at St Albans was part of a complex re-organisation of the shopfloor. "Following the opening of our additional 9,000 ft2 facility we had the space to accommodate large workpieces, with dedicated heavy duty overhead cranes providing the material handling to load and unload the lathe, honing and ejector drilling machines," explains Stuart Grant.