SOFTWARE
position. He also adds extra surfaces to the model to represent workholding, “not something everyone does,” he notes, but a step that helps the simulation account for the vice itself, not just the part. With the block loaded, Vigour typically
works through a facing sequence before the main roughing begins. “I hit the button, go to Z -5 mm, flip the frame, and set -5 mm to skim 5 mm of stock from each face of the billet, establishing clean, known reference surfaces before committing to the finished geometry. Parts are then probed, tools are laser-set, and we press go.” The next stage of programming starts
while that first pass is running. Already back at the screen, he is programming the second roughing operation – typically using the same Sandvik 42 mm button cutter for high-feed milling, followed by a 12 mm R1 ball nose end mill for a deep step-down, then a 6 mm R2 for a shallow contouring pass, leaving around 0.25 mm on the part, ready for finishing. The roughing stage takes about 40
minutes to reduce the part to its smallest dimensions, often as tight as 3 mm. While that’s running, finishing operations are programmed using hyperMILL’s Z-Level Finishing for the larger surfaces, the Profile Finishing function for the part walls, and ISO Machining to work methodically through the pockets – all while the machine is still cutting the
previous stage. “The machine is always running in the background,” he says. Apply that logic across every stage of every part, and the cumulative saving across a busy shopfloor is substantial None of this would be possible
without confidence in the simulation. “There’s no single-blocking or prove-outs anymore,” Ashley Hatton says. “We run the simulation in the software. Once it’s gone through that with no collisions, it’s on the machine and running, and I sit down and start programming the next lot of roughing or finishing. Then, the Feature Recognition tool for finishing enables us to select the part and feature map the holes. It all just takes two minutes. We couldn’t imagine life without hyperMILL.”
Surface finish and complex geometry Vigour’s reputation is built on parts that other shops shy away from. “I want to do the parts that other people don’t want to do,” Ashley Hatton says. “I see the company as an engineering solution provider, not a manufacturing business. If you’ve got really challenging parts, difficult metals, difficult geometry – that’s where we sit.” The business has now developed
a reputation within the gas turbine sector. Recent projects have included the manufacture of MAR-M247 cast turbine wheels and highly complex 17-4PH H900 compressor wheels for
micro gas turbine applications. These rotating assemblies require exceptionally tight geometric control, with shaft-to- wheel runout figures less than 5 micron across the complete assembly, levels of precision typically associated with aerospace and defence hardware. A car upright, manufactured for
the Oxford Brookes Formula Student team, demonstrates the point. Tightly toleranced, with angled holes and undercut walls, the part demands a combination of 5-axis Shape Finishing, ISO Machining inside pockets, and Automatic 5-axis Rest Machining. “hyperMILL makes sure the toolholder doesn’t come into contact with the job, and the cutting edge is always in cut – so you don’t get chatter, just sublime surface finishes.”
Special cycles and cutting time Among the hyperMILL strategies that have made the biggest impact at Vigour is Tangential Plane Machining with barrel tools. “We’ve used barrel tools for around eight years. We were making a motorsport upright, and the part was taking eight hours,” Ashley Hatton recalls. “We introduced barrel tools and Tangential Plane Machining; it wiped out three hours of cycle time with exceptional surface finishes. We’ve been using it ever since.”
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