01/12/2025
Hear from our Operations Manager, Nico Myburgh, as he outlines the capabilities of our newly installed Honor Seiki drilling and finishing machine at Lucchini South Africa.
The fully customised vertical lathe, purchased from Honor Seiki in Taiwan, is equipped with dual RAM capability, a CAPTO C10 turning system, and a programmable HSK 100 drilling head. It features a 1.6-metre diameter chuck with 80-bar clamping pressure, upgraded 70-bar through-spindle coolant, and sister tooling functionality that enables continuous operation and automated tool changes. The machine also retains programme memory during unexpected power cuts, allowing work to resume without restarting.
This investment enhances drilling and finishing of railway wheels, enabling complete machining in a single operation, including the bore, oil grooves, oil ports, tapping, drilling, and chamfering. The system consistently achieves tolerances of up to five microns and delivers significant time and cost efficiencies.
Preparing for installation required major civil works, including deep foundations and the addition of a 63-metre gantry system that will support future expansion. The machine, weighing approximately 53 tonnes and standing 5.6 metres high, was fully installed in South Africa without overseas assistance, in partnership with PBS Machine Tools.
