Months of design and development work came to culmination last week at a dry dock in Marseille, France, when QuantiServ’s new, state-of-of-the art surface facing machine was deployed into the field for the very first time. The machine is designed for in-situ milling and grinding of large, circular surfaces such as those found on large thrusters and well inserts, on slewing rings, hydro turbines, and on blast furnaces. Its first assignment was on the steerable thrusters and well inserts of a cruise ship.
The machine is highly versatile and able to machine surfaces that are vertical, horizontal or inverted. It is ideal to machine circular surfaces between 1500 mm and 5000 mm diameter.
The main advantage of this machine is that it is centreless. The machining head is supported very near to the surface that is to be machined. Thus, the cantilever-effect, which always occurs on traditional facing machines with a central pivot system and that negatively impacts their accuracy, is completely eliminated.
Surfaces that are not circular but rectangular or square shaped, are better suited to X-Y milling and grinding, which QuantiServ also offers.
Getting the machine ready for action at the bottom of the drydock
