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Quality manufacturing inspires investment
The quality of milled motorcycle wheels on TV show, American Chopper, inspired PRB to invest in a Haas CNC machining centre
Viewers of Discovery channel's hit TV show, American Chopper, will be aware of the amazing bikes they build, in particular the incredible wheels CNC milled from solid aluminium billets. All its CNC work is done on Haas machining centres and it was this quality of work that inspired PRB Tools to choose Haas for its new CMC machine.
Company owner, Peter Barton, said: "All our engineers are huge fans of the show so when we decided to invest in a new CNC there really was only one machine that interested us."
PRB Tools has been designing and building HF and vac forming tools fixtures and jigs for some 35-years. The company is planning to add to its reputation for quality tooling production with the arrival of its new Haas CNC machining centre.
Peter continued: "We have always tried to improve both the quality of our tooling and the service we provide to our customers and this machine along with some new CAD/CAM software will help us to do both.
"We can take a customer's basic drawing and model a complete 3D image of the finished tool. Once this has been approved our CAD/CAM system scans the drawing and writes the program which is then feed straight into the CNC. This process takes only a few seconds which makes for a great saving in setting-up time which means we can reduce the overall cost of the final tool."
The similarities with the show does not end with the equipment, just like Orange County Choppers, PRB Tools is a family run business and the introduction of a new machine and software required some intense training. This was taken on by Peter's son, Gary, who has worked with his father for 23-years.
Peter concluded: "This machine has really improved the way we operate and the service we can provide to our customers. Because it has 20 different tools to choose from it will face, profile, pocket, drill, tap and engrave within a tolerance of 0.0001mm from start to finish. This means it can be left to run unmanned overnight helping us to improve our lead times. It also means that we can now supply cost effective aluminium sample tooling which allows the customer to do trial welds and tests before going to production tooling."
