John Sturch has joined Brookhouse, of Darwen, as a project manager responsible for overseeing the work the company is currently involved with in the Airbus A300 and A400 programmes.

John Sturch has joined Brookhouse, of Darwen, as a project manager responsible for overseeing the work the company is currently involved with in the Airbus A300 and A400 programmes. The appointment is seen as a continuation of Brookhouse's commitment to investment in plant, quality and personnel to reinforce its position as the UK's largest independent composites manufacturer for the aerospace sector. John, who has a degree in mechanical engineering and is a chartered engineer, brings a great deal of experience to the new post.

He was previously employed by Doncasters, the leading international engineering group, first as general manager of Doncasters Precision Machines in Shrewsbury and then as team leader for the recent successful bid with Hamilton Sundstrand to manufacture turbo-machinery for the Boeing 787 auxiliary power unit.

Before that, John held various senior management positions in companies throughout the UK, after joining Pilkingtons from university as an industrial engineer, where he devised computer simulations of glass cutting machines.

Married with three children, John lives in Colne.

In his spare time, he enjoys gardening and home computing although he still retains a great interest in scouting being former District Commissioner for Pendle.

Brookhouse is an organisation totally focused on the aerospace sector, providing solutions in composites.

It offers design and manufacturing for composites tooling, a facility for the repair of composite components and a capability for design, prototyping, manufacture, testing and finishing of complete composite components.

As a result, Brookhouse can offer its worldwide customers a global facility to take responsibility for complete parcels of composites' development and manufacture projects.

ARRK secures stake in premier Italian Injection Moulder HCM to increase Full Line Product Development Service.

ARRK has continued to strengthen its Full Line Product Development capability across Europe by taking a strategic shareholding in Italian injection moulding business HCM Stampi SpA. Located in Turin, HCM employs around 150 people and specialises in the production of automotive production plastic injection moulds, along with compression and RIM moulds. Their expertise lies in moulds for instrument panel systems and carriers, bumpers, side panels, interior and exterior trim and under bonnet components.

It is also approved to quality standard ISO 9001 and runs two plants, one in Moncalieri and one in San Martino.

The company's majority shareholding remains privately owned by family member Mr Rossi.

ARRK's investment in this business also gives them access to HCM's sister business Martinplast SpA.

With over 30 years experience in the production of moulds for plastic materials, Martinplast's strength lies in the moulding of technical and aesthetic parts made of plastics for all sectors.

The company is able to handle the design and construction of small, medium and large moulds.

HCM owns 100% of Martinplast.

HCM will continue to be run by Managing Director Mr Sartorelli and his management team: Mr Bregolin ( Technical Services ), Mr Gentis (Sales), Mr Gentile (Production), Mr Michelis (Purchasing), and Mr Vitrano (Quality).

Peter Rawson, European Managing Director for ARRK, explains ARRK's latest investment.

'By joining forces with one of Italy's leading tooling companies it gives us not only access to their expertise and experience in the automotive market but it also gives us a strategic foothold and facility in Italy'.

'We are delighted to be working with Mr Sartorelli and his team'.

'As a combined force both parties can now offer our customers even more in-house Full Line services'.

An expert, international team has designed, prototyped, and successfully tested a composite fuel tank access cover (FTAC) for the new Airbus A400M military aircraft.

An expert, international team, assembled and project managed by Brookhouse, of Darwen, has designed, prototyped, and successfully tested a composite fuel tank access cover (FTAC) for the new Airbus A400M military aircraft and is soon to start rate manufacture. The various members of the team have brought to the project, skills in composites components design, materials technology, process tooling and composites manufacture, to ensure that the innovative finished product totally complies with the Airbus specification, especially in terms of its light weight, its damage resistance and cost-effectiveness. Brookhouse has itself worked closely with Airbus and bae systems for many years on projects from the Canberra bomber to the JSF and on various aircraft within the Airbus series.

However, in order to win the contract for the design and manufacture of the Fuel Tank Access Cover for the next generation of composite wings for the A400M, the Darwen company brought together a team comprising Sener, a Spanish company, who have an expertise in aeronautical design composites structures, Cytec, a US-based carbon fibre company, and Degussa, who manufacture a leading brand of core material for composite structures.

This team then designed, built and tested prototype models prior to the contract award to demonstrate that they had in principle a design that that could fulfil the stringent A400M design requirements.

All pre-production tooling required to support this task was manufactured by Brookhouse Tooling.

The qualification programme is now well advanced with the delivery of the production Fuel Tank Accces Covers scheduled to be in the last quarter of this year, in line with the schedule requirements.

The effective handling and efficient completion of this exciting project is a demonstration of Brookhouse's ability to offer a comprehensive, design/ make packaged composite product.

Acting as overall project manager, Brookhouse can supply aerospace companies with the capability to take responsibility and assume the risk for complete packages of composites development and manufacture work.

Working with global partners, it can develop the materials and techniques to design, manufacture and test prototype composite components and it can then design and manufacture the required production tooling before producing the finished components in-house.

As a result, Brookhouse is ideally placed to help aircraft manufacturers meet the challenges and opportunities afforded by composites components and structures.

ARRK secures stake in premier Italian Injection Moulder HCM to increase Full Line Product Development Service.

ARRK has continued to strengthen its Full Line Product Development capability across Europe by taking a strategic shareholding in Italian injection moulding business HCM Stampi SpA. Located in Turin, HCM employs around 150 people and specialises in the production of automotive production plastic injection moulds, along with compression and RIM moulds. Their expertise lies in moulds for instrument panel systems and carriers, bumpers, side panels, interior and exterior trim and under bonnet components.

It is also approved to quality standard ISO 9001 and runs two plants, one in Moncalieri and one in San Martino.

The company's majority shareholding remains privately owned by family member Mr Rossi.

ARRK's investment in this business also gives them access to HCM's sister business Martinplast SpA.

With over 30 years experience in the production of moulds for plastic materials, Martinplast's strength lies in the moulding of technical and aesthetic parts made of plastics for all sectors.

The company is able to handle the design and construction of small, medium and large moulds.

HCM owns 100% of Martinplast.

HCM will continue to be run by Managing Director Mr Sartorelli and his management team: Mr Bregolin ( Technical Services ), Mr Gentis (Sales), Mr Gentile (Production), Mr Michelis (Purchasing), and Mr Vitrano (Quality).

Peter Rawson, European Managing Director for ARRK, explains ARRK's latest investment.

'By joining forces with one of Italy's leading tooling companies it gives us not only access to their expertise and experience in the automotive market but it also gives us a strategic foothold and facility in Italy'.

'We are delighted to be working with Mr Sartorelli and his team'.

'As a combined force both parties can now offer our customers even more in-house Full Line services'.

Sil-Pro has announced the appointment of Kevin Carver to the position of president.

Sil-Pro has announced the appointment of Kevin Carver to the position of president. He succeeds his father, Lee Carver, who will continue on with company in a realigned role as part of the company's strategic management transition process. Lee Carver, one of the founders of Sil-Pro in 1998, announced the management changes and said that his son's appointment will provide continuity to Sil-Pro's rapid growth as a leading supplier of precision silicone components and assemblies to the medical device community.

Lee Carver said as part of the management transition, he will continue on with the company and focus primarily on Sil-Pro's customer and supplier relationship programs while turning over company-wide management to his son.

'With over four very successful years in his previous position at Sil-Pro as vice president, Kevin is ideally qualified to move into the position of president,' stated Lee Carver.

'He served the company well as vice president and was responsible for strengthening Sil-Pro's management team.

He guided the growth of the company's highly automated molding, part slitting and removal, and electronic vision inspection process capabilities.

He played an integral role in the tripling of Sil-Pro's sales volume and expansion of our customer base to include dozens of the world's leading medical device manufacturers.' Sil-Pro currently has over 100 employees with annual sales exceeding 8 million dollars.

The company is highly specialized in its field with ISO 9001:2000 certification providing CAD product development and class 10,000 cleanroom molding.

This includes fully automated molding cells and complete assembly services.

Included in Sil-Pro's capabilities are liquid silicone molding, gum stock molding, and bonding silicone parts to plastics, metal and other silicone parts using medical grade adhesives.

Sil-Pro's bonding and assembly capabilities include robotic equipment and part specific fixturing to aid in the manufacturing process.

Prior to joining Sil-Pro, Kevin Carver was founder and president of Acrylium, a successful contract fabricating manufacturer, which he sold in order to join Sil-Pro.

A medical care equipment component with a long internal thread recently necessitated the use of an innovative 'unscrewing' device (the first in the UK) from DMS-Diemould.

A medical care equipment component with a long internal thread recently necessitated the use of an innovative 'unscrewing' device (the first in the UK) from DMS-Diemould to help the moulder achieve the required result in a simple, compact, rapid, cost effective and successful manner - a feat that could not be achieved using other systems. RA Labone has built a formidable reputation based on the moulding and pressing work it produces for the automotive sector. Manufacturing automotive parts such as screen connectors for heated front and rear screens, mounting studs and clips for car windows, rear lamp backplates, lampholders and interior light fittings today represents 50-60 per cent of business at the Ilkeston-based company.

The company's success in the automotive industry is mirrored in other sectors, such as home security, cash dispensing and medical care equipment (medicare).

A current medicare project at RA Labone centres around a component with a long, fine pitched, internal thread, a feature that has caused the company some concern, as Engineering Director Richard Goldthorpe explains.

'To manufacture these moulded medicare parts we need to extract and 'draw out' the component before it is fully ejected,' he says.

'Conventionally this kind of task will involve the use of a rack and pinion device.

However, a rack and pinion demands either an exceptionally large press or plenty of headroom to fit it to the tool.

In this case it simply wasn't practical, on top of which it didn't give us the desired level of control during the unscrewing process.' Manufactured from acetal , the medicare part will suffer damage in the form of melting by friction if the unscrewing action occurs too quickly, meaning that precise control is required.

Undeterred the company then specified the tool be fitted with an AC motor featuring an inverter drive.

However, this also proved unsuccessful, largely due to interface problems between the drive, motor and machine.

At the point of exasperation, the company had the fortune to read a short article about hydraulic unscrewing devices from DMS-Diemould, citing a long list of benefits.

'The EXAflow unscrewing device sounded ideal for our application,' says Mr Goldthorpe.

'The first thing we noticed was its ease-of-use - it's simply a direct bolt-on replacement for an inverter motor.

Secondly it is so compact - it required no alterations to our guarding and we didn't have to consider running a larger machine.

Thirdly, there is no need to de-mount the tool from the machine, which would have been the case using a rack and pinion device.

And lastly, the hydraulic control means there is no electronic interfacing required - the hoses and built-in proximity sensor connect directly to the machine.

EXAflow unscrewing devices (supplied as either single or twin drive units) are exclusively distributed in the UK by DMS.

The devices provide time and cost gains in mouldmaking while reducing production costs for the injection molder by giving reliable, trouble-free service.

The secret behind the precision of the EXAflow unscrewing device lies in the fixed stop of the core holder.

The core holder must run against a fixed stop with its entire front surface area.

This can even ensure a precise thread start position, for example, in the case of triangular caps for shampoo bottles, which need to be aligned with bottle geometry.

With 120 employees on site at Ilkeston and associated operations in the Czech Republic and Germany, it is clear that RA Labone is set for a bright future.

'We like to work closely with both our customers and suppliers to promote quality at all stages of the process,' concludes Mr Goldthorpe.

'Today's product designs are increasingly complex and innovative solutions are required to overcome the challenges we face.

The EXAflow unscrewing device is the perfect example of how this ethos can be applied with great success.'

CAD and CAM software helped fast-growing company making automotive styling kits to compliment its more established product design Tool and pattern-making operations.

Delcam software aids 'Plastic surgeons to the automotive industry' Australian company UP Industries has developed a fast-growing subsidiary making automotive styling kits, C2R, to compliment its more established product design, patternmaking and toolmaking operations. Central to the success of this business is a unique composite tooling system produced with Delcam's Power Solution software. Development of the system began from the expertise in urethane resin development of Mani Riederich, who founded UP Industries together with his brother Jogi.

Whilst aluminium, mild steel and cast steel moulds are used for producing large volumes of parts, the company recommends that customers use its composite tools for production runs between 100 and 2,500 units.

'Composite tooling can be produced at a fraction of the cost of steel or aluminium tools and offers good design versatility as well as a class A finish,' emphasised Riederich.

The unique formulations used mean that there are few limits on size; the largest composite mould made by the company weighed 7 tonnes.

The C2R concept came about when UP Industries was faced with a quiet period in certain OEM contracts.

'To tide us over the reduced amount of work, we decided that we should produce our own parts and use them to raise the value of some second-hand cars,' remembered director Eric Schell.

'We then managed to sell our idea to Ford and were commissioned to produce front and rear bumpers and grilles for its Falcon AU mode,' he added.

The company completed the Ford kit in six months.

'Once our extras were added on to the vehicle, the manufacturer saw an uplift in sales,' claimed Schell.

'Since that success, we have become established as plastic surgeons to the local automotive industry, using our expertise to make cars more beautiful.' Typically, the first stage in developing a new automotive component is sourcing data, which is generated by a number of means, including the PowerSHAPE CAD software.

The composite resin cavity and core are cast from this model.

A master sample is then produced to allow preliminary fitting of the part on a vehicle and so ensure that there are no design discrepancies.

Only after this check is a complete tool produced.

Schell said that the Delcam software helps the company to meet its tight lead times.

'The translation of files from our customers into PowerSHAPE is very fast and reliable,' he explained.

'Also, we are able to determine if any problems will occur before we start any manufacturing by using the software's analysis tools and can quickly complete new designs.

Similarly, with Delcam's PowerMILL CAM system, we have advanced our machining techniques and dramatically reduced costs and delivery times.

By combining the power of the software with the skills of our patternmakers, we can achieve an extremely attractive combination of accuracy, high-quality finish, short lead times and, most importantly, financially viable methods to suit most customers,' concluded Schell.

Plastics moulding company has been saving costs by using a laser welding services to repair their dies and cores to hold tight tolerances and minimise moulding 'flash'.

Plastek, an American-owned plastics moulding company based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, UK, has been saving costs by using Pro-Moulds' laser welding services to repair their dies and cores. Plastek is one of the sector's leading international designers and manufacturers of consumer, personal care, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics packaging. Specialists in the design and building of injection moulds and the production of plastic components Plastek has a client base that includes many household names in the food, health, beauty and pharmaceutical businesses.

Rob Skrzypkowski, Managing Director of Pro-Moulds said, 'We have been working with Plastek to overcome the wear problem of the die faces and edges of the cores'.

' They have a requirement that flash is kept to a minimum'.

' This requires the maintenance of a very tight tolerance between the mating parts.' Commenting on the Pro-Moulds laser welding service Paul Hill, Toolroom supervisor, said, 'We use laser welding for repairing dies'.

' Typically it is the edges and cores that wear'.

'We have very tight tolerances to work to'.

' The products we produce for the food industry cannot have any flash on them so wear has, in the past, been a problem, with parts needing to be remade'.

' Using the Pro-Moulds laser welding technology we can weld, machine and polish the surface without there being any visible indication afterwards'.

' This was not possible with traditional welding'.

'We run at six to ten second cycles'.

'This level of operation means the die and cores become very hot and require rapid cooling'.

' To help the cooling of the cores, we make them from mould max, a copper based material'.

' Up until we had access to laser welding technology we had to remake the part, which was very costly.'