Domestic visitor numbers were up by 7 percent and foreign visitors by 10.4 percent, at BIEMH, the 25th International Machine Tool Biennial at the Bilbao Exhibition Center in Bilbao, Spain, this year. A total of 50,712 people visited the show, which attracted trade visitors from 66 countries.
A total of 1,761 firms from 36 countries occupied 788 stands to present innovations and developments in machinery and technologies in the show’s six exhibition halls.
Several of these innovations came from some of the member companies of Spain’s AMT group of manufacturers of accessories, component parts and tooling for machine tools. Three of those companies have established a strong presence in the United States.
Arnold Workholding Inc. (www.arnoldworkholding.com) produces workholding, primarily high-pressure vises that allow shops to take deep, hard cuts to eliminate having to run multiple passes when roughing out parts.
The company emphasizes that its vises feature controlled pressure for consistent clamping and no workpiece deflection. Also, a mechanical system within the vise eliminates the need for hitting the vise handle with a hammer. Operators simply turn the vise handle to a preset stop, and the hydraulics do the rest.
Korta S.A. (www.korta.com), a maker of ballscrews, highlighted its NTG series of highspeed ballscrews that feature a special surface treatment.
Andoitz Korta, general manager at Korta, said his company’s surface treatment proves two times better than nitriding and 10 times better than conventional surface treatments, and it increases hardness and wear resistance to reduce the frictional coeffecient of its ballscrews and lowers the amount of lubricant needed to run them.
Madaula S.A. (www.madaula.com) specializes in custombuilt, precision live tooling for CNC lathes, including adjustable multispindle heads, angle heads and spindle speeders. The company’s latest innovation is live tooling for Swiss-type lathes such as Tornos’s Deco 2000.
Talleres De Guernica (www.tdeg.net) produces chucks among other products. The company’s lathe chucks run as large as 5 m in diameter and address the needs of the oil and wind power industries that are feeding the trend of large-part machining. The company’s latest development is powered chucks for vertical lathes.
Also during the BIEMH show, BAI Agencia de Innovacin, in co-operation with the Spanish Association of Machine Tool Manufacturers (AFM) and the Bilbao Exhibition Center (BEC), presented the ninth annual National Machine Tool Design Award.
In the cutting machine tools category, ONA Electroerosion won for the integration of various elements, ergonomics and communication on its ANF-25 high-speed wire EDM machine. Ibarmia Innovatek and Danobat received special mentions for their ZVH55/ L3000 multipurpose machining center and CP521 AF horizontal bandsaw, respectively.
The award in the large machinery category went to Nicolas Correa Manufacturing for the consistency, balance, elegance and integration of eco-design and safety devices into operations on its LANZA machine.
No award was given in the forming machine tools category, but the awards jury gave special mentions to Macsa ID for the careful design and adaptability of its K-1000 laser working system, and to Axial Maquinaria for the combination of technology and safety in its Syncro 143 press brake.
