Metalock's Global Steel
Reputation
Port Talbot
Due to the severe operating conditions
in steel plants, regular refurbishment of
heavy rolling mills is essential to ensure
efficient production and consistent
product quality. Window areas on
roughing and subsequent finishing mill
stands suffer erosion and corrosion due to
the very nature of the steel rolling process
and once resultant wear reaches a certain
point, it becomes necessary to remove old
wear plates, remachine the surface behind
them to restore original manufacturing
tolerances for squareness, straightness and
dimensional accuracy. New oversize wear
plates are then fitted.
The shear size of the mill housings means
that the remachining needs to be carried
out in-situ. For this reason Metalock
Engineering UK has built up an extensive
range of precision on site machining
equipment specially designed in-house for
steel mill refurbishment.
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These machines, together with
the company’s team of highly
skilled engineers and technicians,
all of whom have many years of
experience with steel projects both
large and small all over the world,
are enabling Metalock Engineering
to establish a global reputation
as the market leader in this type of
machining work.
Drilling & tapping
As well machining the wear areas, before
new wear plates can be fitted, many of the
tapped holes for the plate bolts often need
to be refurbished. The constant pounding
of rollers on hot steel and the vibration
cause the threads to gradually deteriorate.
In addition to the milling machines for
surface work Metalock has developed a
range of drilling equipment to redrill and
tap all the holes.
Not only is the Metalock mill housing
equipment suitable for machining vertical
surfaces it is also used to remachine
the housing bases flat and level with
each other and square to the housings
themselves. Increasingly, Metalock is
carrying out reboring for upgrades of
mill screwdown systems and like the
drilling procedures this work is performed
using an adaptation to the mill housing
remachining system.
This means that the range of Metalock
equipment available for steel plant work
encompasses milling, drilling and tapping,
boring and facing.
Orbital turning
One of the latest pieces of equipment to
be developed is an orbital turning machine
which was designed for machining and
reprofiling 0.5 metre diameter X 1.5 metre
long stub shafts for a beam straightening/
finishing machine at Corus, Teesside.