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Video : Tour of the Cazaneuve factory in France

Was excepting the factory to be modern and brighter/spiffier , because Cazaneuve is a major French machine tool manufacturer, if not the biggest.



http://www.cazeneuve.fr/company

Thank you for that!

I should "get out more", but it was neat w/r the "connection" to my first-generation (cast base, not weldment) HBX-360-BC built perhaps in the 1970's?

Cazeneuve are still reliant on the work of two generations of genius - Henri Bruet (father), inovator, Big Bang through War Two, then son Henri Rene Bruet and the "HB" line (from the initials of BOTH Father and Son).

Compare the "capstan" TS, the beds, and note that the migration to Optica and Optimax "teach in CNC hybrids" seems mostly a move to servo-driven spindle instead of variator & geartrain, the integration of Siemens controls.

Underneath that? Same bed, base, TS, and carriage major castings and assembly techniques, etc.

"Big"? Well ... machine-tool builders are never as "big", economically, as their major CUSTOMERS..

Think transport (automotive. marine, and aerospace), just for the most obvious.

Cazeneuve was born into financial stress - see Tony's website - and has never really escaped it!

See old French news as to mergers and reorganizations.

Hope they survive.

It is a long way from a certainty.
 
Few years ago there was a Cazeneuve HBX 360 that sold at an Illinois auction for $1400. I bought one small lot. Regret not getting the Cazeneuve. Saw the lathe in person, looked nice.

I was expecting the Cazeneuve factory to look along the lines of the Mitsui Seiki factory. Guess their order books are modest now?
 
Are there Mitsui - Seiki videos out there? I have looked and haven't found much.


Couple of years back there was this SIP superoptic at auction. Starting bid was $10K and it received only 1 bid. Maybe weeks or a few months later I saw it pop up on Ebay or someplace, with the same auction picture. I am guessing the buyer was shell shocked at the cost of rigging and transport.


How much do you think it would cost to rig and transport this machine 300miles, 500miles, 1000 miles ? $20K ? $30k ? I presume you would need a specialized rigger who has expereince rigging and transporting large CMMs ?? cause any light damage and it is a boat anchor. Can't be more than a handfull of Superoptics in North America.



 
..any light damage and it is a boat anchor. Can't be more than a handfull of Superoptics in North America.

I'm sure you have noticed that with few exceptions, that is because there no longer NEEDS to be.

"paradigm shift", if you will.

"Old skewl - Moore & SIP Genevoise top of the food chain - way was to build a machine so well prepared to compensate for thermal drift, Earthquakes, etc - also operate it where delta-temp, dirt, and vibration were controlled to near zero, overbuild so wear-rate was miniscule. and TRUST a stable and insanely precise framework as the bedrock of reference.

"New(er) Skewl way, minimizes reliance on the allegedly immovable, unwearing, ad uncorruptible - becase it never QUITE really existed - adopts ACTIVE references, enlists the aid of computers to constantly compensate, self-calibrate, adjust and RE-adjust to a DYNAMIC "real world" instead.

Look it up.

What does the old SIP "brand" appear on more recently? High-end CNC machining centers might show up?

And they have competition. Far more of it, and to higher standards, than ever.
 
Are there Mitsui - Seiki videos out there? I have looked and haven't found much.

No vids, but I think a member here should just about have his ex Qantas Mitsui-Seiki jig borer set up by now, after the best part of a decade under a tarp.
 
I watched the whole video and at the end I came away with a feeling of deep sorrow.
A great company and than you get the feel of seeing something from the 1950s.
So I found this video about a company called "Hermle". You need to watch the whole video. I am glad they are investing in the US. We need this type of thinking from our Machine Tool Industry and especially from our politicians. But what we will most likely get from our Industry is: To much time spent for training and no production.
And from our political leaders: Blah, blah, blah.
INCREDIBLE 5-Axis Machines: Hermle Factory Tour! - YouTube
 
I watched the whole video and at the end I came away with a feeling of deep sorrow.
A great company and than you get the feel of seeing something from the 1950s.
So I found this video about a company called "Hermle". You need to watch the whole video. I am glad they are investing in the US. We need this type of thinking from our Machine Tool Industry and especially from our politicians. But what we will most likely get from our Industry is: To much time spent for training and no production.
And from our political leaders: Blah, blah, blah.
INCREDIBLE 5-Axis Machines: Hermle Factory Tour! - YouTube


Hermle appears to be doing good, with modern production facilities, while many other European old school machine tool builders are limping along or have been integrated into a parent company managing several brands. One of my instructors in the machining program over here in Milwaukee used to work at Milwaukee tool. He said their Hermle , which they used for prototyping, was very precise / very accurate. But the control was a bit counter-intuitive. He preferred Mazatrol.

Grob also seems to be doing well, with modern production facilities , including here in the US. But I can't recall the last time I saw a modern Grob CNC machine at auction. I've seen late model Hermles, DMG / Mori, Mazak, Okuma, Makinos, but no Grob.

Few years back saw the first and only auction for a few late model Kern ultra precision machines.
 
How much do you think it would cost to rig and transport this machine 300miles, 500miles, 1000 miles ? $20K ? $30k ? I presume you would need a specialized rigger who has expereince rigging and transporting large CMMs ?? cause any light damage and it is a boat anchor. Can't be more than a handful of Superoptics in North America.

It would probably cost $5,000.00 to get it loaded on a truck. Then $3.00 - 4 dollars a mile to get it where you wanted it taken, then maby $2,000.00 to get it unloaded. That machine would have to go on an air ride trailer and be well tarped. That machine is even more interesting in that it has the high column. As for number of SIP SUPEROPTIC machines built, a tiny number. My SUPEROPITIC jig borer I was told was one of about ten manufactured. The measuring machines I would guess a similar number.

An interesting point is the difference between a standard SIP machine and a SUPEROPTIC machine was primarily in the way they were scraped. In a standard machine the ways are scraped high in the center. This is to be able to compensate for wear. As the machine is used the ways start to wear over time they wear straight then when the machine has many more hours the ways will wear low in the center. This is done to get the greatest life out of the machine while it holds the guarantied tolerances. In the SUPEROPTIC machines the ways are scraped straight. The builder wasn't as concerned with long life as they were doing the most accurate work from when the machine was new. The builder (and there customers) could live with a shorter working life so that the machine could do much more accurate, even for a short time. If I'm remembering correctly a standard SIP6A/7A had a volumetric accuracy of .00015 where the SUPEROPTIC machines had a Volumetric accuracy of .00005

A lot of these machines came out of nuclear bomb plants. I believe the one you have posted came out of a bomb plant in St Louis MO.

One last thing, having done some research on these the SUPEROPTIC machines may have INVAR frames. If not the entire frame at least the cross rail.
 
It would probably cost $5,000.00 to get it loaded on a truck. Then $3.00 - 4 dollars a mile to get it where you wanted it taken, then maby $2,000.00 to get it unloaded. That machine would have to go on an air ride trailer and be well tarped. That machine is even more interesting in that it has the high column. As for number of SIP SUPEROPTIC machines built, a tiny number. My SUPEROPITIC jig borer I was told was one of about ten manufactured. The measuring machines I would guess a similar number.

An interesting point is the difference between a standard SIP machine and a SUPEROPTIC machine was primarily in the way they were scraped. In a standard machine the ways are scraped high in the center. This is to be able to compensate for wear. As the machine is used the ways start to wear over time they wear straight then when the machine has many more hours the ways will wear low in the center. This is done to get the greatest life out of the machine while it holds the guarantied tolerances. In the SUPEROPTIC machines the ways are scraped straight. The builder wasn't as concerned with long life as they were doing the most accurate work from when the machine was new. The builder (and there customers) could live with a shorter working life so that the machine could do much more accurate, even for a short time. If I'm remembering correctly a standard SIP6A/7A had a volumetric accuracy of .00015 where the SUPEROPTIC machines had a Volumetric accuracy of .00005

A lot of these machines came out of nuclear bomb plants. I believe the one you have posted came out of a bomb plant in St Louis MO.

One last thing, having done some research on these the SUPEROPTIC machines may have INVAR frames. If not the entire frame at least the cross rail.


Yes it was in Missouri. After some googling, I found the old auction add. It was Honeywell

https://www.hgpauction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Honeywell_12_3_14_web.pdf

So what about munitions requires this level of accuracy ? Was it R&D work or used for quality control ?
 








 
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