What is the Wickman Multispindle Automatic Lathe?
The production of component parts in all branches of engineering is dictated by demand. With living standards improving throughout the world, luxuries of yesterday are necessities today within this demand. There are very few mass-produced commodities that do not contain components manufactured on multispindle automatics.
The Wickman range of multispindle autos comprises 10 bar machines of capacities from 5/8″ to 3.1/4″. The 10 capacity sizes have been designed within only five basic frame sizes, a fact that provides a very important user benefit. In general, Wickman tool holders, equipment, and attachments are designed to suit a particular machine frame size; this means that tool holders, attachments, and other equipment can not only be interchanged between machines of the same capacity but can in most cases also be interchanged between the range of machines within any machine of the same frame size.
The complete range of Wickman multispindle autos, laid out in frame sizes, is shown below:
The Machine and its Utilisation
The “No-cam-change” feature makes the Wickman MultiSpindle Auto extremely versatile and has transformed the basic economics of multispindle automatics which determined that multis were only used in the very high volume industries. Wickman have genuinely made medium and small batches economic propositions.
The quadrant linkage mechanism permits the strokes of all cross slides, independent slides, and turret to be changed in a few minutes. Simple sliding adjustments affect alterations to tool working strokes and dispense entirely with cams which are expensive to design, manufacture, store and change. The users of direct cam controlled machines frequently resort, because of the time involved in cam changing, to ‘making do’ with cams designed for one component when a similar component is required to be produced.
The prime purpose of a multispindle automatic is obviously to reduce manufacturing costs to an absolute minimum by cutting manpower and releasing floor space for more profitable use. Ideally, the multispindle auto is turned into a form of machining centre with as many operations as is possible included within the automatic cycle of one machine. This method of production has created the need for numerous standard, semi-standard, and special attachments.
One of the basic facts about multispindle production is that the total time cycle for a component is the longest single operation in the cycle plus the machine idle time. The inclusion of an attachment, or attachments, eliminates second operation machining and cuts costs. It is therefore obvious that it is economically beneficial to include attachments in the automatic cycle and produce component parts as completely as possible on one machine.
