A British engineering firm is bucking the worldwide trend with an impressive 5 million worth of new business in spite of the gloomy global financial crisis.

Thompson, based in Halesowen, has secured contracts for 7 new friction welding machines from many of the top international makers of construction machine components including Caterpillar.

The machines, made at Thompson's manufacturing facilities in Hereward Rise and Chancel Way, are specially designed to friction weld a variety of hydraulic cylinder piston rods in a wide range of diameters from 20-130mm.

Four of the machines have been supplied to customers in Europe, the United States and the Far East including two Caterpillar plants. The remainder will shortly be delivered to manufacturers based in South America and Asia.

Thompson says its success in producing versatile, robust equipment for friction welding construction machine parts can be attributed to its continued investment in research and development, and the skills of its engineering team.

"Thompson machines are continually developed so they offer the latest innovations for customers who want the very best in terms of product quality and integrity, especially for the manufacture of parts such as piston rods," explained Thompson's sales manager Nick Edge.

Thompson's engineering team has developed a series of new machine features that includes environment-friendly, low energy and quiet-running drives and a new linear track system for more streamlined operation of the weld head unit.

"Thompson has been producing equipment for construction machine makers for more than 40 years and it is the company's ongoing investment in innovation, which ensures Thompson's position at the forefront of the market" added Nick Edge.

Established since the early 1960s, Thompson employs 100 staff at its two sites in Halesowen and has an annual turnover of around 20 million. It produces a range of friction welding machines for component manufacturers in the aerospace, automotive and oil exploration industries.

For more details, visit the Thompson website at www.thompsonfw.co.uk.

An ergonomically designed and integrated laser welding system includes four high precision axes, which can be controlled manually or operated under full CNC

Rofin-Baasel UK said that not only are the quality and performance expectations of the medical device manufacturing industry exceptionally high, the range of applications is wide and varied. The company's laser technology has reached a level where there are products and solutions available for a diverse range of applications.

Examples of systems and solutions for welding, cutting and marking will be included on the Rofin stand at the UK's MEDTEC 2008 Exhibition.

Micro and precision welding

StarWeld Select is an ergonomically designed and fully integrated laser welding system.

The system includes four high precision axes which can be controlled manually by use of a joystick or operated under full CNC.

This concept provides a high degree of flexibility for welding applications on medical device components.

A flow controlled exhaust system with HEPA filters is also incorporated and a closed loop cooling system enables continuous operation.

StarWeld Select offers the user as much automation as they desire, said Rofin to manufacturingtalk.com, with the minimum of complexity.

All parameters are easily adjusted using the multi-function joystick and the large colour touch screen.

Laser marking medical components

The CombiLine Flexible laser workstation is designed for manual loading and unloading of components and is ideal for production of small and medium batch sizes.

The system is used widely for marking operations on medical instruments and implants.

The ergonomic workstation has been designed to integrate a wide selection of Rofin laser sources, and options include Lamp Pumped Lasers, Diode Pumped Lasers, Fibre Lasers and CO2 laser sources.

Additional options are also available for motion stages, including horizontal and rotary axes, providing ultimate flexibility for a broad spectrum of marking applications.

All of the system elements are fully integrated to the compact machine housing, providing a small footprint and enabling easy installation.

This together with low operating costs and ease of operation makes the CombiLine Flexible the first choice for medium batch marking applications.

Laser cutting and perforation of polymers

Rofin offers systems for cutting and perforation applications within the medical device and products markets.

A wide range of CO2 laser systems combined with high speed scanner heads or X-,Y-axis provide systems for cutting and perforation of filter materials, biofilms and plasters, etc.

Rofin CO2 lasers provide the following benefits:

• High optical quality.
• High processing speeds.
• High precision.

With over 40,000 systems installed worldwide, Rofin has dedicated itself to becoming the leading manufacturer of lasers and laser based solutions for industrial materials processing.

Welders should be shown the defects of their production, should get explanations on the causes, and should be instructed on how to avoid them.

Inspectors carry most of the burden of interpreting requirements and of acknowledging the fine line between acceptable flaws and rejectable defects.

Designers should get acquainted with the realizations of their productions and should learn to establish sensible requirements easily achieved by the available equipment and workforce.

To reach the following sources, readers have only to click on the following links. Further links may then open additional pages.

• Welding Defects: ESAB Handbook.
• Welding Defects: Engineering Structures.
• Welding Defects: (photo presentation) AWS.
• Welding Defects: BOC.
• Welding Defects: ISF RWTH Aachen.
• Creating High Quality Stick Welds: A User's Guide - Lincoln Electric
• Weld defects/imperfections in welds - lack of sidewall and inter-run fusion: TWI.