Safe Travels for Large CNC Lathe

This machine tool manufacturer was one of first to implement a new horizontal guiding cable carrier system designed to stop metal chips from causing abrasion and wear on large machines with extremely long travel cable carrier applications.

Guidelok holds a cable carrier’s upper and lower runs apart over long distances when they would normally glide on top of one another. This means metal debris cannot settle between the two runs and cause abrasion.

The new cable carrier system is already being used successfully by one machine-tool manufacturer, who replaced a heavy steel chain with Guidelok to avert potential damage from large metal chips. Guidelok was also lower cost than other steel chains or sophisticated long-travel systems available.

Tornos Gurutzpe S.A. (Guipuzcoa, Spain) has been in business for 52 years and has delivered well over 5,000 machines over that period. Specializing in large capacity lathes, the company sells to customers in the United States, Europe, India and elsewhere. It supplies turbine parts for power plants, drill pipes for oil production, laminated and hydraulic cylinders. Its best-known customers include certain suppliers of Spanish oil company Repsol and the railroad companies SNCF (France) and RENFE (Spain), as well as elevator companies including ThyssenKrupp Elevators and U.S. company Halliburton.

About 30 machines leave the Gurutzpe factory each year. The shop’s focus is on the durability of each machine, according to sales manager Oscar Anitua, “Even decades-old machines made by us are still operated by our customers.”

The company’s latest horizontal CNC turning machine, the A-2000 4G CNC, is designed to be reliable, resilient and efficient: top requirements for lathe buyers all over the world. It required a cable-carrier solution that was suitable for unsupported long travels and hot metal chips.

An initial prototype of the new A-2000 4G CNC was delivered to a customer in the wind-energy sector equipped with two horizontal Guidelok systems running side-by-side over a distance of 44 ft. Joaquín Orbegozo, head of electrical engineering at Gurutzpe, is convinced of the advantages of the new carrier system: “The cable carriers are rugged, rigid and reliable.”

He explains this to customers, “Sometimes one says, I would have liked this or that machine, but with a metal cable carrier.” Then Orbegozo explains the benefits of lighter, robust plastic cable carriers, demonstrating that they can easily tolerate the weight of a grown man.