26th October 2009
HNC wins prestigious award in China!

12 months ago HNC of Halifax, West Yorkshire, the UK’s premier machine tool rebuilder and retrofitting specialist, won a major contract in China against fierce overseas competition to the value of almost a million pounds. The machines were fully rebuilt and re-engineered to HNC’s exacting standards, packed, and despatched to the prestigious new US$98 million facility in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, where all were installed, commissioned and operating in line with the company’s requirement - in time for their grand opening ceremony on September 24th 2009.

Although significant effort has been put in by the HNC team over the past 12 months in order to achieve the tight schedules agreed by the joint venture partners, HNC’s Managing Director, Mike Diskin was “bowled over” to receive a personal invitation from the partnership General Manager, Chan Kwai Wan - suggesting he should attend!   

Mike did attend the opening ceremony, but was stunned, when Chan Kwai Wan called out his name to come up onto the ceremonial platform to receive the Chinese company’s first “Equipment Supplier” award. This special award, in the form of a plaque was presented to the supplier, who, in the opinion of the two partners, provided a first class overall product/service. All contractors involved in the facility, from the supplier of the steelwork to that of the computer system were judged on their performance, including the quality of product, service provided, on time delivery and so forth, with HNC standing scoring near 100% in each category. Mike added “I was one of only a few British suppliers at the ceremony and am exceedingly proud of the efforts made by the HNC team; it is truly a great day for our company.” 

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1st September 2009
HNC Launch Machine Sales

As part of the repair and refurbishment of machine tools, HNC often come across useful parts and spares and occasionally a full machine tool than can, with a little care and attention, be given another useful life.

Rather than retire a machine or fill our scrap skip with un-needed but otherwise useful items, we give them a new life and offer them for sale. HNC are pleased to announce the first fully refurbished machine tools are now available through the website. Each machine, part, or spare is fully refurbished and is backed by the HNC guarantee of quality. The sales "stock" will rotate over time as machines are brought back to life and go on to find production positive new homes. The wise buyer will keep a regular eye for great value tools and hard-to-find parts.

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08 April 2009
Exciting new product - exciting new partnership!

Halifax Numerical Controls Ltd (HNC) of Halifax, West Yorkshire has become something of a leading light in specialist machine tool design and manufacturing in recent years, with many famous “names” utilising their skills.

Carl, founder and proprietor of Huddersfield based Rollertech who supply the rubber roller industry with machinery and spares on a global basis had an idea for a new type of grinding machine and needed someone who could translate these ideas into a workable design and build a machine. Contact was made with HNC, culminating in a signed agreement.

HNC would carry out the design and build a prototype with the assistance of Rollertech then jointly develop the new machine in line with Carl Slingsby’s vision.

Rubber roll grinders have been around for years, usually in the form of a universal grinder with the table traversing in the “X” axis, because that’s the way it’s always been. One of the problems when grinding shafts such as 3000mm is that the machine has to more than twice that length to accommodate the table traverse, taking up valuable floor space. This in turn causes further problems with the inertia of moving a 5 tonne component back and forth.

Working within a tight, but realistic time frame, HNC fully developed a machine designated the Rollertech RT 3000. The heavy duty, totally enclosed machine is fully electronic in operation and capable of grinding rubber rollers up to 3 metres in length with a maximum component weight of 5 tonnes, whilst maintaining an end to end accuracy of 20 microns. The machine is compact with the component rotating during the grinding process but remaining stationary in the longitudinal axis as the wheelhead now traverses in the “X” axis in addition to the “Z” as per conventional machines.

A multitude of programmes has been developed and incorporated into the control including parallel, convex and concave grinding along with grooving cycles giving  herringbone, chevron and diamond patterns to name but a few. It has further been developed to enable customers to easily prepare programmes for their own specialist shapes and patterns as required.    

Carl and Mike are rightfully pleased with their endeavours, ready to take their machine to market – but best of all, it’s about half the price of conventional CNC roll grinders, taking up half the space but offering a massive capacity – and is simple to use!

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