Watch our appearance on #SwarfandChips, the weekly engineering YouTube show from MTD CNC. You can watch the video on MTD CNC's website, YouTube or by clicking play below.

We have recently been enjoying utilising our latest Colchester CNC lathe – the newest addition to our CNC large turning section here at Hone All Precision. The Colchester Lathe Company, based in Heckmondwike in West Yorkshire, is one of the world’s leading producers of CNC lathes and supporting equipment.

The process of gundrilling was initially developed to create uniform sized holes in artillery pieces and rifles. Techniques and technologies were set in place to give repeatable, highly accurate results on mass armament production lines, from the late 19th century onwards. Gundrilling is still used in the defence industry, but has far wider applications too.

When carried out using the right equipment and with the right training, gundrilling delivers reliable results each time. This is the reason the technique – which you may also know as deep hole drilling – is so widely used in manufacturing. Hundreds of aerospace, automotive and medical components, among others, use gun drilling to produce precision holes of almost any length.

Gundrilling (alternatively called Deep Hole Drilling) is a reliable method used to make precision holes in a wide range of metal and plastic components.  The method is known for its efficiency in creating perfectly round drilled holes and straight drill channels. However, sometimes mistakes are made with gundrilling that affects the final accuracy of the result.

We love attending trade shows. They are a fantastic opportunity to keep up-to-date with industry trends, meet suppliers and forge links with customers old and new. Sometimes attending a dynamic trade show or exhibition can give your business the X factor – that stimulus to growth that turns your year around and opens up exciting new opportunities.

Honing is one of those subcontract services which often suffers an unfairly bad reputation!

Covered in the apprenticeships of old, it's always the honing machines that bring either the wry smile or comical grimace when people visit as if they were lucky enough to go through a full apprenticeship it was either one of their favourites or the hated machine that just “had to be used to pass the exam”.

The new revision of AS9100 was published in 2016 but it has been reported that many businesses have delayed getting the transition progressed. Accreditation Bodies are reporting that as few as 40% of their client base have gone through the transition and many are planning an initial transition assessment in March 2018. The fear is that there will not be enough time to rectify NCRs raised before the September deadline. Many are reporting that the assessor resource will also be stretched beyond capacity, leaving many clients without any Quality Accreditation in October 2018.

Gundrilling refers to a process of drilling deep, precise holes in many different materials, from super alloys to aluminium. The key elements to deep hole drilling methods are tight diameter control, good finish, and straightness. 

A deep hole is defined by the depth-to-diameter ratio and every hole larger than a ratio of 10:1 is considered deep. There are lots of applications for deep hole drilling across many industries, with the origins tracing back to gun barrels. Deep hole drilling is used in different materials and can help achieve a tight diameter, straightness, and a perfect surface finish.