Deep Hole Borer Commissioned

Langley Alloys are now able to offer deep hole boring from our own facilities.

The deep hole boring capability is a perfect complement to our extensive range of solid and hollow bars – providing customers with a greater choice of alloy type, sizes and amounts.

Large bores, up to 200mm internal diameter and over 2m in length have been produced in the last few weeks, limited only to the availability of tooling as we extend our in-house capability. We have successfully processed a range of high-strength super duplex including Ferralium 255-SD50 and nickel alloys such as Alloy 825, as well as stainless steels.

Deep hole boring in-house allows us to save you time and cost – no need for transport between subcontractors, taking days out of the lead time too. Perhaps more significantly, it can be used to bridge the gap between solid bars and our range of hollow bars. Unlike our hollow bar stock range, deep hole boring is not limited to a handful of stainless steels, it can produce exact dimensions rather than be limited to standard sizes, and there is no real limit to the minimum order quantity, all without mill production lead times of weeks and months.

Deep hole boring, or deep hole drilling as it is sometimes referred to, is a process to create long holes through solid bars where the diameter to length ratio (D:L) of the hole can be greater than 10. Compare this with the traditional drilling process, which is limited to a D:L of no more than 4 by the relatively small size of drill bits i.e. a 50mm diameter drill bit could potentially produce a 200mm long hole. Our tooling is indexable, allowing centre bore sizes in 1mm steps, whereas standard Hollow Bar and Tube sizes are commonly limited to a series of standard sizes based upon process or market constraints.

We use a STS (single tube system), where the cutting tool is mounted on a long hollow bar that travels through the centre of the bar. During boring, large quantities of cutting fluid are pumped through the STS to the end of the bore, to carry away the swarf. This set-up lends itself to larger and longer holes, and is even more cost-effective when several bars of the same bore can be produced consecutively to reduce set-up times.

For more information, please contact Langley Alloys today.