Springer Rapid has spent Ј500,000 on a 5-axis machining centre built by DMG

Springer Rapid has spent Ј500,000 on a 5-axis machining centre built by DMG

A UK toolmaker has installed one of the fastest and largest mould making machines in the world. Springer Rapid, the Rotherham-based rapid tooling firm established last year by Gordon Styles, has invested Ј500,000 (E750,000) in a 5-axis machining centre that can cut tools up to 2 metres at a rate of 60 metres a minute.

The DMU200P machine built by DMG is one of only a handful installed in the UK. It forms part of a Ј3.2m (E4.8m) investment programme at Springer Rapid, which has been supported by the South Yorkshire Investment Fund.

Springer Rapid will specialise in mould and component machining for items greater than 0.5 metres in size. Styles said the machine would be particularly useful for machining aluminium tools weighing up to 5 tonnes for reaction injection moulding, thermoforming and compression moulding.

“We’re not really looking at injection moulding [moulds]. There are too many people in that game.” Styles emphasised the speed of the machine, which uses the latest computing technology. In one recent comparison it machined a complex aluminium mould in a tenth of the time it had been done previously. “DMG have kitted out this thing with a supercomputer,” he added.