This is a gloat. I don't post many but thought that this glimpse of a somewhat specialised machine might be of interest and is at least unlikely to start a flurry of competitive comparisons.
A bit of background. My product uses a specific component 11 times in its manufacture. That component has to have an 8mm counterbore hole 10mm deep drilled in its face near both ends - with a centre between 10-12mm from each end. I reckon that I get through about 8-10,000 of these components in a year. Thats 16-20,000 holes. I have had a number of jigs on the drill press to ease this but they have all lacked precision or speed. The precise ones are slow and the quick ones are imprecise. This is a tedious job but getting it right makes a big difference both in ease and quality.
So I set about trying to find a better way of doing it at a realistic cost. After about 18 months of looking - enter the Brookman Twin Head boring machine. (My wife finds it funny when I mention the boring machine to say "What - another one?").
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Basically it is big chunk (about 1000lbs) of cast iron with two direct drive drilling heads and a bunch or pneumatics. The foot pedal at the base of the machine starts the cycle. Step on it and the pneumatic clamps are activated. When they have gripped the workpiece the slideway that the two heads are mounted on advances until it hits an adjustable stop, then the slideway retracts, the clamps unclamp and the job is jobbed. Basically the idea is to be able to set the workpiece up, start the cycle, and then start prepping the next workpiece.
The two drill heads are adjustable across the width so that varying workpieces can be accomodated. The height of the table can be adjusted using the kick ring which is visible just above the foot pedal.
I plan to make up a series of jigs to fit my varying workpieces and have started to get my head around pneumatics for this and some other facilities that I have in progress.
Not the sort of thing that many people will have much use for but for those of us who have it will hopefully prove very valuable.
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Originally Posted by Rob Russell
