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Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2025-07-15 Origin: Site
Large mold manufacturing, especially for automotive body panels and ship hull molds, involves massive sizes, heavy weights, and stringent precision requirements, placing very high demands on processing equipment. Heavy horizontal CNC lathe, with their outstanding load-bearing capacity, stable machining accuracy, and flexible process adaptability, have become indispensable key equipment in the field of large mold manufacturing. This article will focus on the core applications of heavy horizontal lathes in large mold manufacturing, addressing common questions, and exploring their technical advantages and application value in depth.
Large mold blanks are usually castings or forgings weighing tens of tons, which traditional equipment struggles to support while ensuring stable and precise machining. Heavy horizontal lathes feature an integral cast bed structure that undergoes aging treatment to eliminate internal stress. Their worktables can bear loads up to hundreds of tons, combined with high-strength chucks or centers to fix the blanks rigidly. The spindle delivers high torque to drive the heavy blanks to rotate steadily, paired with wide-edged turning tools for heavy rough turning, quickly machining the blanks close to finished dimensions, greatly shortening subsequent finishing time. For example, when processing a 5-meter diameter automotive body panel mold frame, rough machining of the outer circle and end face can be completed in one go, improving efficiency by over 40%.
Large mold forming surfaces often include complex curved surfaces and step structures, requiring extremely high machining accuracy. Heavy workpiece CNC lathes are equipped with high-precision hydrostatic spindles with rotational accuracy up to 0.001mm, combined with closed-loop feedback systems using linear scales, controlling machining dimensional errors at the micron level. Multi-axis CNC systems enable 3D trajectory interpolation to machine complex curved contours that meet design requirements. To meet surface roughness demands, turning parameters can be optimized—such as reducing feed rates and increasing spindle speeds—along with high-finish turning tools, achieving surface roughness below Ra1.6μm, significantly reducing polishing workload. For example, when machining the tread ring of large tire molds, the lathe can accurately replicate fine tread details, ensuring clear tire tread patterns after molding.
Large molds often require multiple locating holes, mounting holes, and irregular structures on end faces or sides. Heavy horizontal lathes can be equipped with powered tool turrets or milling attachments to realize combined turning and milling operations. Using indexing functions, the spindle can rotate to a specific angle and lock, then milling feeds complete eccentric hole machining, avoiding positioning errors caused by re-clamping. Features like keyways and grooves can be machined in a single setup combining turning and milling, ensuring coaxiality, perpendicularity, and other geometric tolerances between features, greatly improving machining efficiency and assembly accuracy.
Local wear is inevitable during mold use, and full replacement is costly. Heavy horizontal lathes can re-clamp the mold and use online measurement systems to compare with original design data, accurately locating worn areas for localized precision turning repairs. The lathe's fine feed control allows turning increments as small as 0.001mm, ensuring smooth transitions between repaired surfaces and surrounding areas without affecting molding quality, significantly reducing maintenance costs.
With the advancement of CNC technology and machine tool design, OTURN's TMY series CNC turning and milling center has achieved significant improvements in machining efficiency and precision. This series features an innovative bed structure design, optimized chip removal and machine rigidity, and integrates an automatic tool magazine to enable seamless switching between turning and milling operations. High-speed tool changing technology and intelligent tool management systems greatly enhance production efficiency. The TMY series supports machining of various complex workpieces, meeting the multifunctional processing needs of large molds and heavy parts, making it an ideal choice for modern large mold manufacturing.
Heavy horizontal lathes equipped with intelligent control and automated tool changing systems can not only perform traditional turning but also realize various complex machining processes such as milling and drilling, greatly expanding the possibilities of mold manufacturing. With strong load capacity and high machining precision, heavy horizontal lathes have become core equipment in large mold manufacturing, improving efficiency and quality. As CNC technology advances, its applications will become even broader. OTURN, with rich industry experience and quality service, helps customers enhance machining efficiency and precision, providing reliable solutions.
