Machine category 04

Metal working machines

Lathes, drills and grinders — the machines a workshop is built around and the ones it keeps longest.

Not every job needs a control system. A great deal of Egyptian manufacturing is repair, modification and one-off fabrication, and for that work a well-built conventional machine in trained hands is still faster than programming a part you will make once.

These are also the machines that stay in a workshop for decades, which makes the availability of spare parts and a service engineer a bigger factor in the decision than the purchase price.

What it is for

Turned shafts, pins, bushings and adaptors
Repair and re-machining of worn components
Drilling and reaming to position
Surface and cylindrical grinding to a finish
One-off parts for machines out of production

How to choose

01

Centre height and between-centres set the ceiling

These two numbers decide what will ever fit on the machine. Everything else can be worked around; these cannot.

02

Spindle bore matters more than people expect

If you feed bar stock, the bore decides your maximum diameter and therefore whether a job is one setup or three.

03

Conventional, or CNC?

One-offs and repairs favour conventional. Repeat batches favour CNC. Many workshops run both and route work by batch size rather than by machine preference.

04

Ask about parts before you ask about price

A machine you will keep for twenty years is a twenty-year relationship with whoever supplies its bearings, belts and electricals.

Questions we are asked

Do you carry spare parts for older machines?

Spares and consumables are a standing part of the business, and for machines we supplied we keep the details on file so a replacement is identified from the machine, not from a guess.

Tell us the part you need to make

An engineer reads every request. Usually the same working day.

Request a price