Approximately 5 years ago the concept for a new centreless grinding machine was conceived with a number of objectives, to increase the reliability, consistency of the process and speed setting up.

Approximately 5 years ago the concept for a new centrelessgrinding machine was conceived with these objectives. * To reducethe known problem areas associated with centreless grinding suchas taper on parts after dressing, difficult and slow wheelchange, slow changeovers, and only through and straight approachgrinding. * To enable centreless grinding on components notnormally associated with this method of grinding.

* To reduce thenumber of cnc controlled servo slides and make more universal.

*To dress both grinding and control wheels from the front toreduce the tapers after dressing.

Douglas Curtis were successfulin applying for a Smart award, a government funded grant to helpwith the development costs in new projects, and designed andbuilt the prototype on our existing between centre grindingmachine base and enclosure.

This was extensively tested and anumber of limitations with the existing machine base becomeapparent.

It was restricted in z axis travel (400mm) limitingdressing variations, fitting automatic loading was difficult dueto the position of electrical cabinet and when heavy cuts weretaken vibrations occurred due to poor damping of machine slides.On a visit to an EMO exhibition in 1998, a visit to theKellenberger stand was made.

The sales director of Kellenbergerworked in the past with our sales director for a centrelessgrinding company, and general talk about the grinding businessand of our development of a new concept centreless grindingmachine were discussed and the problems we had incurred.

furthermeetings between ourselves took place and it was decided to usethe Kellenberger Kel-Vision machine base, slides and B axis ifrequired and enclosure.

This would give us the increased strokewe required (650mm) and also the base was vee and flat cast ironbed ways oil lubricated which would give very good damping.

Kellenberger made a number of small modifications to the standardmachine base and slideways and modifications were made to ourwheelhead and control wheel assembly to suit the new machine.

Douglas Curtis fits their own design wheelhead and control wheelassemblies, fit all the electric's including Siemens 840DCNC control and digital servo motors, design and integrate partshandling equipment and write all the machine software.

To datetwo machines have been sold and a machine has been exhibited atthe EMO show on the Hardinge/Kellenberger stand.

The joint veturewe hope will be benificial to both companies, Douglas Curtis area small company with little sales overseas except through to ourU.K customers and are not known outside the u.k.

Kellenberger onthe other hand are vey well established in external grindingworldwide with a large sales network.