Everything's going according to plan

Mills CNC has recently supplied Tufcot Engineering Ltd with a new, large-capacity, multi-tasking lathe to enhance its machining capabilities. The 24” chuck DN Solutions’ Puma 700LM II equipped with driven tooling and FANUC 0iTP control is one of the largest machines acquired by Tufcot in its 43-year history.
Tufcot’s relationship with Mills CNC began in 2005 with a Puma 240LC and now the company has purchased the Puma 700LM II, installed at the company’s 50,000sq/ft facility in Sheffield in April 2024.
Over the years, more investments with Mills have followed to consolidate its supply chain position and acquire new business. It ordered the new Puma 700LM II as well a new 21” chuck Puma 4100MC lathe to be installed in August. The latest additions will take the CNC lathes acquired from Mills CNC to 11 in total.
“The high-performance lathes that Mills sells and supports are real workhorses. They are reliable and deliver the fast processing speeds and accuracies we need to meet our customers’ demands,” says Tufcot’s Managing Director, Greg Majchrzak.
Since being installed, the new Puma 700LM II has been used to machine small batches of high-precision large diameter Tufcot® composite bushes and bearings for customers in the marine sectors. Tied up to tight tolerances, these parts have long cycle times and a range of intricate milled features.
Tufcot® is a composite engineering material manufactured from synthetic fibres and thermos-setting resins. However, the company’s core business is supplying finished products such as wear pads, bushes and bearings.
The marine sector is important to Tufcot’s growth ambitions. Says Justin Krebs, Tufcot’s Operations Manager: “Our knowledge of composites and their application has helped highlight significant new business opportunities that we could exploit if we had larger and more sophisticated in-house turning capabilities.”
Tufcot always had the capacity to machine large parts on its existing lathes, but the processes involved were more labour intensive and required more work handling. This had a knock-on and detrimental effect on the cost-per-part.
As Justin Krebs continues: “Owing to the increased demand for Tufcot® composites, it made perfect sense to strengthen our turning operation by investing in a new large-capacity lathe to machine these larger parts. As a consequence, we approached machine tool suppliers with our plans and asked them to recommend their preferred solution.”
Having gone through what was a comprehensive and detailed decision-making process, Tufcot ultimately opted to go for the Puma 700LM II from Mills CNC. The Puma 700LM II is a large-capacity lathe with a 900mm maximum turning diameter and a 3200mm maximum turning length.
Says Greg Majchrzak: “The Puma 700LM II can handle large and small parts, and the driven tooling capability enables complex, high-precision features to be machined in a single set-up.”
Delivering fast part cycle times and eliminating the need to transfer components between machines has helped improve productivity and process efficiencies. It has enabled Tufcot to win new machining contracts for larger components from new and existing marine customers that, before the Puma 700LM II investment would have been out of its reach.
Continues Greg Majchrzak: “To protect the new business won on the back of the Puma 700LM II acquisition, we also decided to duplicate the investment by ordering a new, similarly specified 21” chuck Puma 4100MC lathe. This will enable us to continue to meet our production and delivery schedules should the Puma 700LM II be out of action for any reason. In effect, we are future-proofing this new business, and leaving nothing to chance.”
In addition to investing in the two new lathes from Mills CNC, the company has also recently acquired two, new state-of-the-art CNC routers in 2022 and increased the size of its facility with the purchase of additional premises.