IMTEX 2015 will witness the most awaited launch of one of the most advanced deep hole drilling technology. Precihole Machine Tools, a leader in deep hole drilling technology with more than 50% sales outside of India in markets like Europe and US is gearing up to unveil the next generation of the already popular GVN series of deep hole drilling machine at the upcoming event. Precihole will exhibit at Hall No 3B, Stall C-109 at IMTEX scheduled from January 22-28 at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), Bengaluru.

Technologies Precihole is going to showcase:

Single Axis Gun Drilling Machine
Precihole’s GVN Series Single Axis Gun Drilling Machines cover all major requirements needed in a Deep Hole Drilling solution: high precision, high productivity, compact footprint, affordability and reliability. These Machines can be tooled up for a wide range of components and cover the whole spectrum of gun drilling range from Φ 1.5 mm to Φ 40 mm

Some additional highlights of these machines include:

• Modular Construction that allows high level of flexibility for standard components
• Covers all major applications spread across a myriad of industries like Defense, Oil & Gas, Medical, Automotive, General Engineering, Heavy Engineering, Power, Nuclear, Die and Mold, Instrumentation, Steel, Earth moving equipments and many more.
• Option for 2 spindle or 4 spindle configuration provides higher productivity
• These machines are designed with prime focus on operator safety and ease of operation
• The setup change-overs are quicker and extremely operator friendly
• Different levels of automation can be incorporated to satisfy custom requirements

Three Axis Gun Drilling Machine
Precihole XYGVN Series Three Axis Gun Drilling Machines are designed for prismatic components and for holes on PCD. Designed for precision and high productivity, these versatile machines are ideal for gun drilling in complex components.

Some additional highlights of these machines include:

• CNC Controls for precision positioning of horizontal and vertical axes
• Compact footprint and ease of use for operator
• Option of 1 spindle or 2 spindles for high productivity
• Fixturing capabilities to stack and drill multiple components

Precihole Machine Tools is a leader in providing deep hole drilling solutions. The company manufactures state-of-the-art machine tools and special purpose machines. Precihole also provides precision machining and component manufacturing services for the engineering industry.

Precihole Machine Tools, a leader in deep hole drilling solutions is all set to unveil its state-of-the-art micro gun drilling machine at the premier exhibition, International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) at Chicago. The micro gun drilling technology finds applications in Medical, Aerospace, Tool manufacturing as well as several other industries. Precihole machines are exclusively imported and sold by Absolute Machine Tools Inc. in the North American Market.

Talking about launching this technology Mr. A.A. Qazi, Director, Precihole Machine Tools says, “US is a key market for Precihole and IMTS one of the biggest manufacturing technology show. We are proud to be able to offer such a technology to our potential customer base. We are seeing a good market potential for this solution based on the leads we have obtained so far.”

These gun drilling machines are designed for drilling into parts that require deep holes drilled accurately. Use of latest features such as high speed motorised spindles, tool monitoring systems, high pressure coolant pump, multiple tool studies and component counter rotation ensure excellent straightness and bore finish & surface finish. Precise and highly productive, these machines are ideal for parts in medical industry like bone screws, cannulated parts, drills and other medical devices.

The machine was developed by taking feedback from industry experts and actual users. There were several design and technical improvisations that needed to be done to existing technoloy to come up with such a advanced and highly productive solution.

“The machine needed to have upto 24000 RPM tool rotation as well as coolant pressurized to 130 bar to remove the swarf with a very specialized pumping system. To achieve such high accuracy we applied our decades of knowledge & experience and integrated some of the high-end technologies,” explains Qazi.

The machine also has a dedicated tool monitoring system that continuously monitors the load and the vibrations coming on the tool. In case of slight variation it indicates the same immediately; decreasing the chance of any error. The footprint of the machine is also very compact to allow customers to maximize on their floor space usage.

Salient Features 

• Compact footprint.
• Ultra High speed motorized and balanced spindle
• State of the art tool monitoring system that monitors multiple process characteristics providing reliable feedback to prevent swarf clogging and tool breakage
• Very High pressure  & recirculating coolant system with 5 micron purity
• Multiple tool steadies to support Micro gun drills with L/D ratios upto 200
• Component counter rotation that ensures excellent hole straightness

Talking about the machine, Qazi says, “Precihole is the first company from India that has developed such a technology and is offering this as a standard product. The machine is very user friendly as the processes are automated, an operator just has to load the job and push the start button to drill the part. Sensing of swarf clogging initiates swarf removal step and in case of tool bluntness machine will give indication. Even it will prevent drill breakage in most cases by immediately stopping the process.”

In India where almost 60% of the machine tools are imported, Precihole is one company that boasts of 50% sales coming from exports, mainly to Europe and US.

“We are expecting this to be a good “world premier” for Precihole and do expect a jump in orders for us from the show ” says Qazi.

As such “drilling” is the most commonly used process. You would find people using this technology even at home with an easy to use hand-drill machine. Once it comes to deep hole drilling very few people know about it. I have come across highly experienced engineers oblivious to this technology. Of course the main reason for this being that the process of Deep Hole Drilling is not commonly used in the industry compared to conventional machining processes like turning, milling, conventional drilling etc.

This technology dates back to the late 19th century, when it was invented to manufacture gun barrels. Earlier gun barrels were made by forging a long strip of steel around a mandrel in a helical fashion. This hand forging process formed the barrel bore around the mandrel and also welded the strip at the spiral joints. This used to be a highly skilled as well as cumbersome process. On the other hand Deep Hole Drilling made the barrel bore making process highly reliable and fast. Obviously being an armament technology, it remained closely guarded subject. Therefore even today you won’t find information in this area in the public domain. Even many Deep Hole Drilling solutions provider do not involve themselves into research in this field. Subsequently it started being used in other industries like oil exploration, automotive, nuclear, power generation etc.

Generally speaking, Deep Hole Drilling is used in applications where the ratio of hole depth to hole diameter (L/D) is more than 10. Major challenge in drilling Deep Hole Drilling is removal of chips from the hole. Peck Drilling is one way of tackling this issue. But there are still issues of lower productivity, hole quality and straightness etc. There are applications where Deep Hole Drilling is used for Holes with L/D ratio less than 10 due to its inherent capability of producing Holes with Higher accuracies and surface finish. But Deep Hole Drilling is the only option when it comes to larger L/D ratios where these ratios can go up to 100!

For implementing Deep Hole Drilling process the first thing required is an investment in Deep Hole Drilling Equipment. You will find many companies converting their conventional lathe machines into drilling deep holes and ending up losing money with breakages of costly tooling’s and compromising on quality of the component being drilled. Also the coolant required in this process is special cutting oil with EP additives. As already mentioned the expertise in this technology is very limited and hence troubleshooting becomes a challenge. Companies promoting this technology like Precihole are planning to conduct workshops and seminar for educating the Indian Industry. As India is poised to become a global manufacturing hub after China, it is imperative to keep updated with the latest manufacturing technologies and Deep Hole Drilling is one of them. In fact the government should promote research in this field through various engineering and research institute.

There are mainly three categories in Deep Hole Drilling Systems viz. Gun Drilling, BTA/STS drilling and Ejector Drilling. Generally for smaller diameters Gun Drilling is a preferred option. The range can be anywhere from Dia. 2 to 25. There are applications where up to Dia. 1 gun drilling is done on the lower side and up to Dia. 40 on the higher side. BTA/ STS drilling generally starts from Dia. 18 to 250 solid drilling and counter boring can go up to Dia. 500. Even here BTA is being used up to Dia. 12 in some special applications. Ejector technology has been developed by Sandvik mainly introduced to retrofit a conventional machine with Deep Hole drilling system.

Having more than two decades of experience Precihole is the first company in India to promote the standard models in Deep Hole Drilling Machines. This modular concept reduces the overall cost of the machine as well as the lead time. The Basic Machine for Gun Drilling starts as low as Rs 25 lakh whereas BTA machine starts from Rs 50 lakh. There are large Deep Hole Drilling machines drilling up to 12 meter long which cost more than 10 crores. There are specialised processes that have been developed upon the Deep Hole Drilling Concept like Skiving and Burnishing, Pull Boring, Trepanning etc.

Latest technological trend is using inserted type Gun Drill and BTA heads instead of brazed type. This enables usage of proper grade and geometry of Insert for specific materials. Advancements in coolant technology are now being introduced to increase the tool life as well the finish of the hole. On the machine side tool monitoring is being introduced to safeguard the costly tool. Apart from this in the filtration systems, automatic back filtration systems are being developed.

Looking at the huge growth in power, export, nuclear, oil and gas, renewable energy and automotive sectors there is a spurt in requirement for Deep Hole Drilling in the Indian Manufacturing Industry. It’s a big challenge for Indian industry to learn and adapt to this specialised technology.

Courtesy: Precihole Machine Tools

Precihole Machine Tools Pvt Ltd has perfected the art of making reliable deep hole drilling machines during 25 years of its existence. Precihole also provides precision machining and component manufacturing services for the engineering industry. Spread across a total of 150,000 sqft in enclosed building structures, Precihole is today market leader when it comes to state-of-the-art machine tools and special purpose machines. A visit to their facility proves why… 

Headquartered in Thane, near Mumbai in Maharashtra, Precihole has become a one-stop-shop for deep hole drilling technology. The company is now enjoying considerable amount of export as well. The Precihole story began 25 years ago when three experienced and seasoned technocrats got together with an aim to revolutionise the machine tool industry by providing custom-made machinery with cutting edge technology at reasonable costs.

Precihole is an industry leader when it comes to reliable and cost effective deep hole drilling solutions. The company also flaunts India’s largest and most versatile job shop for deep hole drilling services. Backed by skilled engineers and excellent sales and service, the company has several hundred machines successfully in production at several large and medium sized businesses around the world. The company has valued customers in the defense, automotive, aerospace, oil and gas exploration, steel tube, medical equipment, textile, machinery & machine tools, heavy engineering and general engineering industry.

The Precihole Advantage
To keep it short-Precihole offers the latest in cutting technology at affordable costs. The machines are well designed with the customer needs in mind. The machine tool range offered by Precihole covers most materials and hole sizes needed in the industry. The Precihole team considers that the effort being put by them for continuous innovation helps them lead. The team has been making constant progress on the technology front by innovating new designs and offering customers sophisticated product at affordable price each year. The company manufactures a superior quality range of deep hole drilling technology and these machines are available as per the customer’s specific demand. In order to meet this demand, the company standardises various modules. This ensures that the customer gets faster deliveries.

The Facility
The state-of-the-art facility is equipped with latest technologies backed by skilled work force. The company uses the best quality equipment’s to ensure reliable products for its customers. Quality assurance follows each individual part from initial fabrication through final assembly. The company also invests heavily in manpower development and training by conducting workshops and training sessions. “We believe in nurturing talent and continuously providing them training” says A A Qazi, Director, Precihole Machine Tools Pvt Ltd.

For every machine, depending on the specification and design requirement, there are 15 to 20 engineers working on the design alone, while almost equal numbers of employees work on the manufacturing process in the tool room and around 12 to 15 more during the assembling process.

In terms of specifications, drilling machines are built to handle components of diameters ranging between 2-150 mm typically, while 300-400 mm diameter machines can also be made. A machine weighs roughly around 7-8 tonnes and can be customised as per the need. Also, after dispatching the machine, Precihole appoints one engineer to the customer’s factory who takes care of assembling and training. The company maintains international standards at every step right from the shop floor practices to component manufacturing, end-product quality to dispatching.

Talking about the innovations in the company Qazi says, “We have a dedicated team for research and design activities, who continuously work for up gradation of our machines. We have exported various machines to counties like USA, Brazil, Austria and Canada.”

Variety of Products
The company’s complete line of deep hole drilling machines is designed to meet the needs of the modern machine shop today and for years to come. These machines offer a wide range of features and capabilities making them versatile to suit a myriad of applications in various industries. The multi-axis and multi-spindle versions boost productivity many folds without compromising on accuracy and rigidity.

The newly introduced next generation BTA drilling machines provide enough power to easily drill into solid metal up to 350mm (13’’) and lengths of up to 15m (45 ft.). Precihole also specialises in manufacturing custom designed special purpose machines that cater to complex drilling and machining needs.

Precihole has developed the largest Deep Hole Drilling job-hop in India. But there is much more to this, the company also has an in-house facility for Precision component manufacturing. With the latest machinery in place, Precihole has been able to provide customers complete solution for their product, from process designing to the actual finished component. With over 30 years of experience, Precihole has established itself as a brand in this niche technology.

Over the year, with its wide range of sophisticated deep hole drilling technologies, the company has earned huge number of customers in its basket. Precihole has customers in wide variety of sectors which incude Honda, Mahindra, TATA, Premier, Cummins, Escosrts, Bosch, Godrej and Sandvik to name a few.

Aiming High For The Future
During its inception, it was considered to be a local brand, but with continuous innovation and hard work the company has made its mark in global the market.
“We always try to make our products beyond the customer’s expectation so that we have more to offer. We also try new things and upgrade ourselves with the demand. We have incorporated lean manufacturing in our system, which is not only helping us reduce and identify unnecessary waste processes, but is helping us increase the volume of products being manufactured at our plant without any added cost or investment,” says Qazi.
Precihole is committed to providing the highest level of quality in all its solutions. The company has implemented 5S, Kaizen, TPM and other techniques of Lean Management in various departments to ensure continual improvement. The company also works on SAP B1, a world-renowned ERP system.

Precihole is one of those companies, who challenge themselves to upgrade their offerings. Looking into forward, Precihole aims to increase its market share in the global market by making foot hold and entering new markets.