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A Colchester engineer giving some training
Blocks of steel in a Colchester machine
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Two Colchester Triumph machines side by side

Timet UK Ltd are a producer of high grade Titanium and part of the PCC group of companies, as such they have to physically and chemically test every batch of material produced.

In November 2018, Timet UK commenced a series of upgrades and replacements of the machines in their 'Test Piece Prep' facility. This started with the replacement of two 30+ year old manual centre lathes with our latest Colchester Triumph VS2500’s.

Whilst investigating the suitability of these machines, Timet were introduced to the Alpha range of manual/CNC lathes, which led to the purchase in January of 2020 of two machines; The Alpha 1400 XS for production of “dumbbell” type tensile test pieces and an Alpha 1550 XS for the production of larger round “slices” for both physical and chemical testing.

It was again whilst carrying out cutting trials on their materials, that Colchester came up with a solution for the production of Timet’s “fracture tough” fatigue test pieces. This consisted of a complete “turnkey” solution, including work holding, tool holding, cutting tools, part programming and proveout, both at Colchester’s European Technical Centre in Elland, West Yorkshire and then repeated at Timet’s Birmingham factory. This project has improved the process dramatically, with improved cycle times, surface finish, accuracy and a reduction from three very old dedicated machines, to one new state of the art Colchester Storm VMC 600, that will also be used for other products in the future.