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Bradford Cylinders

Self-contained Mac’Ants blast room technology helps leading hydraulic manufacturer move ‘in-house’

The recent move by one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of hydraulic cylinders to a 4,000 square metre premises has not only marked an important development for the company but has also allowed it to bring blasting processes literally in-house – thanks to specialist technology from Mac’Ants.

A purpose-designed blast room has been developed by Mac’Ants for operation within the new facility now operational at Bradford Cylinders’ site in West Yorkshire. Because it is a self-contained unit, it has allowed the company to replace blasting operations that previously took place at an external contractor. The development has enhanced production processes whilst helping to ensure Bradford Cylinders maintains the highest quality of production for its customers world-wide.

“The blast room is centred on a single purpose-designed, rubber lined container,” comments Mac’Ants’ Director Kent Martin. “This not only provides an area for the blasting operation itself but, because it is also fitted with air extraction, media filtration and re-circulation facilities, helps meet specific environmental and economic objectives.”

The entire Bradford Cylinders output covering its full range of component sizes and specifications – both standard and `special` designs – now passes through the new blast room. Because of this, it was important that the components’ wide dimensional variety was taken into account with the blast room design. Individual products of between 40 and 1,000 mm bore and stroke sizes up to more than 11 metres are available within a range that meets the diverse requirements for oil or water operations across a wide marketplace, including rolling mills and maritime applications. The positioning of the larger units in the blast area thus presented specific challenges, as Production Manager, Andrew Smith explains –

“The blast room design incorporates a slot in the roof structure through which a crane can lower larger cylinders, weighing up to 10,000 kgs each, onto trestle supports. The opening is then simply re-sealed before operation. Conversely some of the smaller units can be handled manually and brought in through two large doors,” he says.

Normal blasting uses either cast iron or glass media – also supplied by Mac’Ants – which is fired against the piece using hand-held, pneumatically charged nozzles. “This produces a surface which is both cleaned and prepared for the subsequent painting processes,” continues Andrew Smith. “Importantly, spent media is collected into an adjacent cyclone separator – also part of the Mac’Ants installation – which returns useable media to the appropriate reservoir while ultimately separating finer particles for safe disposal.”

Often running during working shifts of three or four consecutive days, the blast room is clearly a central facility for Bradford Cylinders. It has become a channel for all products made by the company and must, therefore, meet specific performance objectives on a continuous and reliable basis. This has been enhanced by full operator and safety training, which was also provided by Mac’Ants and, to date, Bradford Cylinders reports that all process objectives are being met by the Mac’Ants installation.