In the realm of precision engineering, where tolerances are measured in microns and surface finishes are paramount, the honing process could be described as prevailing in
accuracy. Among the various honing machines available, the delapena PowerHone EXL is said to be a champion, delivering exceptional performance, versatility, and ease of use.
At the heart of the PowerHone EXL lies a robust design, crafted with heavy-duty
components to ensure high stability and vibration-free operation. This translates to
consummate precision, with honed surfaces achieving mirror-like finishes and
dimensional accuracy exceeding even the most stringent requirements. The
machine’s rigid construction also means it can tackle large and heavy workpieces with confidence, making it ideal for diverse industrial applications.
In manufacturing, close working partnerships between customers and suppliers are worth their weight in gold and that’s certainly the case with Hemel Hempstead-based precision subcontractor Subcon Drilling and honing specialist Delapena who have been working together for many years, developing super abrasive to optimise their honing process. In 2019 however, Subcon Drilling threw down the gauntlet to its longstanding supplier with a specific challenge that included specialist honing super abrasive. Dave Tudor reports.
Through a combination of a delapena SpeedHone Cooper S horizontal honing machine and customised, tuned and tweaked super abrasive honing stones, not to mention extensive trialling, delapena not only managed to hit the 20 minute cycle time target they totally annihilated it, said Dean Edwards, Subcon Drilling.
The recent couple of years has been extraordinary for all. For delapena group, it has bought challenges and uncertainties that could not have been foreseen. However, this has allowed them the ideal opportunity to invest time in R & D which has proven to be both interesting and exciting. Renowned for being innovative, industry leaders in honing, delapena are pioneering the way for Industry 4.0. Intelligent honing machines. Mach 2022 will be the first public demonstration of three new generation honing machines. PowerHone E, ForceHone and PrecisionHone.In addition to the eagerly awaited new machines, delapena new cutting-edge iHone technology.
delapena`s flagship machine, the PrecisionHone is a vertical honing machine for production honing of small parts. Accurate and packed with features, for large batch work and tight tolerances the PrecisionHone is the machine of choice. Designed for medium to large batches, the PrecisionHone can be configured to suit the customers’ needs.
Lower cost Super abrasive
delapena sintered products strive to offer the highest quality product and service to our customer, a key factor in this is value of the product. To address the high cost of super abrasives we were keen to investigate all the sintering technologies available with the intention of driving the super abrasive manufacturing costs down making it an affordable option compared to standard abrasive.
This has been achieved by investing in the best technology available as well as optimising the process flow in manufacturing using best practice lean principles. Quality, Delivery, Price, and Service targets have all been achieved with customers saving on average 30% against competitors’ products. View our brochure
In recent years Ceramics, Chrome and Carbide have provide a challenge for the honing process due to the increased surface hardness properties of the newer grade carbide abrasive.
To address these harder materials, delapena sintered products state of the art production facility, design, develop and manufacture super abrasive bonds with outstanding results.
Following extensive research and using innovative technology, delapena have developed Chomestone.
| `Honing of Hard Chrome case study` A customer of delapena was using a delapena PowerHone to resize Chrome plating in cylinder using a conventual silicon carbide abrasive. The downside to using conventual abrasive is the abrasive wear quickly and the honing machine needs constant adjustment to maintain size. The customers honing process averaged 60 minutes depending on the depth of the chrome layer. Chromestone developed by delapena sintered products was then introduced and reduced this honing process to 10 minutes. Another advantage that their customer also gained was that traditionally the worn chrome plating was stripped overnight in chemical tanks. Using a rougher Chrome bond abrasive, Chromestone, allowed the cylinder to be honed prior to the plating process in a little under 20 minutes negating the need to chemically strip the cylinder. |
Lower cost Super abrasive
delapena sintered products strive to offer the highest quality product and service to our customer, a key factor in this is value of the product. To address the high cost of super abrasives we were keen to investigate all the sintering technologies available with the intention of driving the super abrasive manufacturing costs down making it an affordable option compared to standard abrasive.
This has been achieved by investing in the best technology available as well as optimising the process flow in manufacturing using best practice lean principles. Quality, Delivery, Price, and Service targets have all been achieved with customers saving on average 30% against competitors’ products.
Find out more, visit www.delapenasintered.co.uk
The delapena group recently exhibited at Advanced Engineering 2019, hosted from 30th-31st October at the NEC in Birmingham. Our Managing Director, Martin Elliot, had this to say about the exhibition…
“delapena attended Advanced Engineering to showcase our latest Industry 4.0 honing machines, which we believe are an ideal fit for the exhibition. The event was very successful for us, with many prospective clients enquiring about our delapena honing machines, from our small vertical machines up to our long 4m TubeHones.
After attending the show, it has become clear that engineering companies require simplicity and deskilling of the process, due to the current skill shortage in the UK. This is exactly what the delapena group provides – we can service hard to grind and hard to hone materials.”
If you missed us at Advanced Engineering 2019, not to worry – get in touch with us at sales@delapena.co.uk to discuss your honing and grinding requirements.
Boneham & Turner celebrated its 100-year anniversary last year and is a leading manufacturer and supplier of tooling components and precision engineered components in the UK. The Mansfield-based company prides itself on reacting to customer requirements, maintaining imperial and metric stocks of over 350,000 jig and drill bushes and over 1.3 million dowel pins.
Quality is at the forefront of everything that Boneham & Turner represents, not only the products it produces but the suppliers it chooses. One such supplier is delapena Honing based near Cheltenham.
Managing director Peter Boneham says: “Celebrating our 100 years in business was a very proud moment. I am fourth generation managing the business alongside my cousin. In the 100 years many things have changed, but one thing has remained constant and that is our focus on quality and innovation.”
Boneham & Turner works in many sectors including F1 motorsport, aerospace, general engineering, composite industries and plant. Honing has been carried out in-house for over 70 years. However, over time this became very reliant on one person within the business and when they retired much of the knowledge was lost. The company looked for a solution that would mean that less knowledge was needed to carry out honing tasks.
Boneham & Turner chose delapena Honing to partner with and ordered three delapena SpeedHone EAS machines.
delapena Honing will soon be celebrating 100 years since its formation and supports every aspect of improving surface finish, from feasibility on a part, to specification and new machine manufacture, to special tools and services.
“We chose the delapena SpeedHone EAS because of the machines capability,” explains Peter Boneham. “It’s very easy to set up, simple for new operators to be trained and is a very high precision machine that achieves the tolerances and concentricities that we require for our drill bushings. Another key for us was that the delapena SpeedHone EAS is a lot cleaner and much safer than the traditional hones you would see in our industry.”
Boneham & Turner was attracted to delapena firstly for the efficiencies that the SpeedHone offers, but another key factor was the knowledge that the delapena team provides through their vast knowledge both on the ground and at their head office in Cheltenham. It is this complete service that lead Boneham & Turner ordering three machines and consignment stock.
“delapena is a very supportive company,” continues Peter Boneham. “We have a commitment from delapena in terms of the tooling and helping us continually improve our methods. We also have a consignment stock of tooling that really helps us to manufacture profitably and efficiently.”
The SpeedHone is a compact machine with considerable flexibility and capability. The honing process becomes deskilled and offers both a semi-automatic and manual operation. The SpeedHone is ideal for one off and batch production work, honing diameters from 1.14 mm to 80 mm with an increment of one micron.
delapena Group has every facility required for honing, including an application centre, subcontract honing department, tooling refurbishment centre and a reverse engineering tooling centre. The company has built a reputation over the past 90 years for high quality products, great service and value.
delapena Group has always been at the forefront of development and delivery of reliable honing solutions. One of the most successful line of honing machines delapena produced was the Speedhone series, there are still many thousands of them in use throughout the World. The Speedhone provided a simple and effective honing solution for the skilled operator to use and give an all round consistency of Honed product.
Today more and more companies are looking for a cost effective honing solution to give even greater flexibility and capability. The EAS SpeedHone is the next generation from delapena and is already making a difference to many clients including aviation engineering company, Impcross, based in Gloucestershire.
“Impcross has a reputation for manufacturing difficult parts in volume to compete on the world stage. To be able to achieve this we have invested in the right machines and work with strategic partners to ensure we remain competitive and produce a product to the highest exacting standards required in the aviation industry” said Dale Ballinger, CEO of Impcross.
Markets such as aerospace work on the frontier of research and development, with a continuous drive to find lighter and stronger materials. This delivers a stream of challenging new materials and applications for honing, particularly as the tolerances required in technically advanced componentry are constantly being refined. The standard expectation is now two microns and part of the preference for honing is because this process can achieve this close tolerance work with ease and speed.
The SpeedHone is a compact machine with considerable flexibility and capability. The honing process becomes deskilled and offers both a semi-automatic and manual operation. The SpeedHone is ideal for one off and batch production work, honing from 1.14mm – 80mm diameter, with an increment of one micron.
“When we invest in new machines we need to ensure precision, be able to automate a process and have reliability. The EAS SpeedHone has significantly improved productivity and lead-time for our honed processes and products. We have just placed another honing machine order with delapena to expand our honing capability further. delapena offer excellent support to our business and as a result our joint partnership grows stronger”, continued Dale.
The easy operation of the EAS SpeedHone means that operatives can be trained in under one hour, along with ergonomic controls and rapid tool changes. The SpeedHone has foot pedal control function, integral coolant system and a lightweight safety interlock guard all contained within a compact space-efficient unit that can be lifted and relocated on a standard pallet truck.
Feedback from clients has focused on the affordability of the unit, ease of use, increased productivity and quick tooling changes. The SpeedHone is ideal for bushes, sleeves, pump bodies, valve bodies, con rods, rocker arms and refurbishment of components.
“The Speedhone from delapena has a reputation built over the last 90 years and the EAS SpeedHone is a natural next step for us as a company” said Managing Director Martin Elliott. “The SpeedHone is an essential machine for every tool room with it`s affordability and increased productivity, some clients have shown us that SpeedHone now takes hours to do a task that previously could take weeks”. Martin continued.
Key Features of the SpeedHone
delapena Group supports every aspect of improving surface finish, from feasibility on a part, to specification and new machine manufacture, to special tools and services that include subcontract honing, application development, process engineering, maintenance and training.
delapena Group has every facility required for honing, including an application centre, subcontract honing department, tooling refurbishment centre and a reverse engineering tooling centre. The company has a reputation that has been built over the last 90 years, a reputation for a high quality products, great service and value.
delapena Group manufactures a complete range of Rottler type replacement stones available in CBN and diamond to meet all of your honing needs. All of our honing stones are available in standard sizes to meet OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) specifications.
Available in 76mm, 89mm and 102mm long with abrasive grit sizes from 80 grit to 1200 grit as standard. We also offer bespoke options available on request.
All of delapena Group honing stones are manufactured and tested with the latest equipment to ensure high quality and meeting OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) specifications.
Rottler type compatible (generic) honing stones manufactured to fit your Rottler type machines and tooling.
delapena Group's super abrasives are manufactured at our Cheltenham UK headquarters.
delapena have developed and manufactured a full range of Sunnen computable 'K' Series super abrasive stone assemblies fully compatible with the OEM mandrels.
We can supply a complete range of equivalent ‘NM and ’DM’ series super abrasives in all grit sizes and hardness specifications.
We can also supply replacement ‘P28’ and ‘H70’ super abrasive stone sets fully computable with OEM equipment.
delapena have developed and manufactured a full range of Sunnen General Hone computable tube hone super abrasive stone assemblies fully compatible with the OEM mandrels.
We can supply a complete range of equivalent ‘NM and ’DM’ series super abrasives in all grit sizes and hardness specifications.
These are avalible mounted on holders or as a stick for customer mounting. These super abrasive stone sets fully computable with OEM equipment.
At delapena we manufacture and refurbish tools from many other OEM manufactures including.
In the pre-dawn light of the 4th Industrial revolution, it seems unbelievable that honing is still done ‘hands-on’, but it’s not so long since honing engineers would hold up their hands to show missing fingers, in order to demonstrate how they mastered their craft. In the modern, legislated world, that’s clearly unacceptable, but occasionally still done. So, when presented with the opportunities to make safe the production of components for a wealth of different industries delapena were only too pleased to introduce the customer to a machine designed with failsafe, interlocking guarding, to remove hands from the work area. This means that operators would no longer be anywhere near the spindle when in motion and no longer requires the component to be guided by hand onto the Honing mandrel. The operation becomes totally hands free; happening at the push of a button, well behind the auto-stop doors.
However, simply making an accurately controlled CNC Honing machine is only part of the solution. The complete solution includes Super Abrasives honing stones and precision fixtures and it is a mix of all these that provides the customer with a repeatable, stable process. Although delapena has been in the honing business for 90 years it was missing the expertise of Super Abrasive hone manufacture. delapena had relied on third parties to supply honing abrasives for various applications that demanded specific abrasives to suit specific materials. The fact that delapena could not manufacture its own Super Abrasives honing stones was compromising the complete solution explained Managing Director Martin Elliott.
In 2015 delapena took the plunge and invested in a small R+D cell for the manufacture of Super Abrasives and within a matter of weeks developed its 1st range of Honing bonds. The initial objective for the delapena range of Super Abrasive honing bonds was to become self-sufficient and be able to act quickly with spikes in customer demand. However, the uptake of the new offering soon became a bottleneck on the small scale production facility which prompted delapena to take the plunge and invest in the latest state of the art equipment. The new equipment was installed in late 2016 and was operational by January 1st 2017.
With all the enquiries for the Super Abrasives, 2017 was a bit of a blur and by the end of the year, delapena was supplying its products into 6 Automotive Engine plants around the world. One of the reasons for the success was delapena’ s ability to manufacture new products within 7 days and also to offer consignment stocking of abrasives for the larger users with unpredictable demands.
The Metal Bond Super abrasives market was the 1st target for delapena product and more recently delapena has launched Vitrified Super Abrasives and Cork Abrsives to compliment the range.
Ideal for most general Honing applications
Ideal for very hard materials
Ideal for Plateau honing
Due to market uncertainty in the UK with Brexit and what the future holds with regard to trade tariffs there has been a move to reshore critical products. delapena has been very active with the OEM’s in the Automotive Engine industry and now offers:
The key message coming from delapena customers discussing the Honing process and Industry 4.0 is to have a honing machine with a stable process that requires little or no operator intervention. Using standard vitrified bonded abrasives does not lend itself to industry 4.0 due to the wear factor of the abrasives. However, when using Super Abrasives with little wear characteristics it allows the Honing machine to run many hundreds of components before size adjustments are required thus lending itself to a more autonomous process.
delapena has now reengineered the complete range of its Honing machines to run with Super Abrasives and are now in the midst of implementing smart Industry 4.0 technology onto the delapena Honing machines. This will lead to a range of machines with Automation and decision making capability enabling maximum productivity gains.
The 1st of these machines will be displayed on the MACH2018 show at the NEC exhibition in April. It will come in the form of a New Vertical Honing machine that can be adapted to customer requirements.
In recent years Ceramics, Chrome and Carbide have provided a challenge for the Honing process due to the increased surface hardness properties of the newer grade materials. To address these harder materials delapena created delapena Sintered Products to develop a new range of Super abrasive bonds with great success.
Honing of Hard Chrome case study – a customer of delapena was using a delapena Powerhone to resize the Chrome plating in a cylinder using a conventional Silicon Carbide abrasive. The downside to using conventional abrasives is that the abrasives wear quickly and the Honing machine needs constant adjustment to maintain size. The customers Honing process averaged 60 minutes depending on the depth of the Chrome layer. A New Chrome bond developed by delapena Sintered Abrasives was then introduced and reduced this Honing process to 10 minutes. Another advantage that the customer also gained was that traditionally the worn Chrome plating was stripped overnight in Chemical tanks. Using a rougher Chrome bond abrasive allowed the Cylinder to be Honed prior to the plating process in a little under 20 minutes negating the need to chemically strip the cylinder.
| Process | Cycle time | Advantages / Disadvantages |
| Honing (Powerhone) | 60 minutes | Higher production costs |
| Honing (Powerhone) | 10 minutes | Environmental – No Chemical stripping required |
Ceramic bore honing case study - Advanced ceramics are a special type of ceramics used mainly for electrical, electronic, optical, and magnetic applications. The industry has shown significant growth in recent years and quite often adopts the internal grinding process to machine the bores. delapena was recently set the challenge of Honing 2mm out of a Ceramic component with a target time of no more than 60 minutes. delapena Sintered abrasives created a new abrasive bond and which completed the honing cycle in 55 minutes against an internal grinding process cycle time of 4 hours.
| Process | Cycle time | Advantages / Disadvantages |
| Internal Grinding | 4 hours | Operator required to redress wheel |
| Honing (EAS Speedhone) | 55 minutes | Machine left unmanned |
Cylinder Bore Honing – delapena has been involved with OEM Engine manufacturers for over 50 years and has seen many changes to the Cylinder block honing process with the phasing out of conventional abrasives and introduction of Diamond bonded abrasives and more recently the need to hone with Soluble coolant rather than the traditional neat mineral oils. Using a Soluble coolant without the advantage of pressure additives found in mineral oils requires a different type of super abrasive bond. These bonds can now be found at delapena along with the traditional Plateau honing abrasive variants.
Combining the introduction of the new abrasives together with a honing tool service package for the OEM Engine manufacturers has led to delapena increasing the sales in this value stream by 300%
As well as servicing Engine OEM’s delapena can also provide slotted Diamonds for the engine refurbishment industry to hone the traditional Cast iron bores as well as Nikasil bores. These slotted hones are readily available on the shelf and competitively priced.
Lower cost Super Abrasives - To address the high cost of Super abrasives delapena was keen to investigate all the Sintering technologies available with the intention of driving the Super abrasive manufacturing costs down making it an affordable option compared to conventional abrasives. This has been achieved by investing in the best technology available as well as optimising the process flow in manufacturing using best practice lean principles.
To penetrate the market with new abrasives sales delapena had to achieve Quality, Delivery, Price and Service targets. delapena is pleased to announce it has achieved all the aforementioned targets with customers saving an average of 30% against competitors’ products.
Celebrating its 90th year managing director, Martin Elliott, is in no doubt about the company’s strength, “Our success is built entirely on the efforts of the team,” he said. “That begins with our talented workforce and extends to our strategic partners and 25 distributors and agents around the world. They should all be proud of what we have achieved together and excited about what is to come.”
According to delapena, the firm’s success is also due to the breadth of its offering: It supports every aspect of improving surface finish, from feasibility on a part, to specification and new machine manufacture, to special tools and services that include subcontract honing, application development, process engineering, maintenance and training.
Since the emissions scandal in 2015, automotive manufacturers have had renewed vigour in their commitment to achieving the emissions levels required with the latest specification of engines. Honing is a key process in achieving these levels and Martin Elliott of delapena explains how honing head reconditioning supports this endeavour
Reconditioning of honing heads is a service that has seen continuous demand for many years. However, in more recent times, honing has moved into the spotlight and is now rightly recognised for its pivotal role in supporting automotive manufacturers to build engines of a specification to meet emissions targets. Consider this with the good news that automotive production volumes hit a 17-year high in March 2017, thanks to the weak pound encouraging exports, and it’s clear that as production is booming, so too is demand for a complete service for hone head refurbishment.
We now work with seven of the major engine manufacturers in the UK and our approach starts with thorough inspection of the honing head to find any current failures and then to identify, in advance, any potential issues for the future. Our focus is on maximising safe lifespan and optimising performance, so we consider both short term remedial work and longer term preventative maintenance.
The right abrasives are central to this refurbishment process and, in developing the right honing sticks for the head, we carefully considered the ideal match of diamond powders and other super abrasives (each having their own cutting characteristics) with the right choice of bond, so that an ideal wearing characteristic could be achieved. This ensures that the geometric integrity and exact surface finish are achieved, plus the lifespan is optimally managed. Exacting quality assurance is built into the process, with every batch of honing sticks measured for specific gravity, to a tolerance of 99.7 per cent accuracy. Full traceability is an essential feature of the process, which includes the ability to track every honing stick back to the powders used, along with the sintering cycle data from the time of pressing. Beyond these replacement honing sticks, we also replace carbide wear parts and grind the required geometry onto carbides and diamonds.
Calibration is an important part of the process and following remedial work, we recalibrate honing heads so that they hone the cylinder bores right first time. This has time saving advantage for the engine manufacturers and ensures that the honing head is ready for immediate deployment.
Beyond the standard support of specialised reconditioning, we are often asked to assist engine manufacturers with process improvement initiatives. We recently manufactured some new honing heads to replace a customer’s worn out product and this brought a 40 percent tool life increase, not only saving refurbishment costs but also reducing production downtime for the customer.
Automotive engine reconditioning is a new growth area for delapena and we have recently added valve guide honing mandrels to our portfolio, plus a new hone head drive adaptor. The valve honing adaptor is precision-made and differs from other mandrel adaptors currently on the market, as it has been designed without any ‘finger traps’ to address the Health and Safety issues that currently exist with many products. They are also fitted with a modified standard mandrel, giving a cost saving of 60 percent.
For honing machines used to recondition cylinder blocks, we offer a range of super abrasive honing sticks. These fit with a modified standard mandrel to keep costs low and provide a cost-effective option for this work.
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), automotive companies are now looking at ways to boost UK-made components going into the cars built here, which is good news for British engineering that services this market. The Automotive Council estimates that around £4 bn of business could be returned to the UK by boosting domestic parts makers and in a recent report, PA Consulting recommended “Increased investment in UK parts procurement, production and supply chains to offset increased import costs, aiming to reduce the impact of tariffs imposed on component parts moving between the UK and EU”.
We are well placed to capitalise on this macro-economic influence and expect demand for honing and all its associated products and services to continue to grow.
Master of the honing and grinding market, delapena Group, this month celebrates its 10 year anniversary under the ownership of David Arthur. Reporting a seven figure order book, the business continues to grow and has set its sights on doubling its turnover by 2020.
Despite the firm’s successful 89 year history in the honing market, David Arthur rescued it from financial disaster a decade ago and has invested heavily since then to bring the business into world-class standard. Today delapena has grown into a successful group, specialising in surface finishing in the bore or on the shaft. It boasts a portfolio of electronically-controlled honing and grinding machines, plus the tooling, fixtures, abrasives and oils to support their operation.
Explaining his vision for delapena, chairman, David Arthur, comments, “I bought this business believing that technology was ready to transform the honing market and that has been realised, to great effect. We have grown through investment in research and development, plus implementation of industry-leading processes. Whilst much has been added and changed, we benefit from the unmatched level of specialist expertise and experience held within the business and so we have unlocked the value of delapena’s legacy with a future-focused approach.”
Celebrating its anniversary with a party for all 38 staff, managing director, Martin Elliott, is in no doubt about the company’s strength, “Our success is built entirely on the efforts of the team,” he said. “That begins with our talented workforce and extends to our strategic partners and 25 distributors and agents around the world. They should all be proud of what we have achieved together and excited about what is to come.”
According to delapena, the firm’s success is also due to the breadth of its offering: It supports every aspect of improving surface finish, from feasibility on a part, to specification and new machine manufacture, to special tools and services that include subcontract honing, application development, process engineering, maintenance and training.
Ten years on, David Arthur now resets his vision; “The last decade has been about getting ready for growth and preparing every aspect of the business to really fly. The next 10 years will be about capitalising on that and building the business further. We have plenty more celebrations to enjoy!”
Master of the honing and grinding market, delapena Group, has launched a new division; delapena Sintered Products. This specialist manufacturer will develop and produce super abrasives specifically for the honing market, at its new purpose-built laboratory in the UK.
With a capital investment of over £250,000, delapena Sintered Products, will have the only sintering manufacturing line of this type for honing sticks in the UK. It has commissioned a new state-of-the-art production centre that includes a specialist sintering press, and mixing and dosing units. In clean conditions, it will be blending its own diamond powders and bonds, with a range of cutting characteristics, and developing bonds to suit all possible honing applications. Honing sticks will be the main product line, with initial capacity to produce over 250,000 high quality sticks per year.
Exacting quality assurance is built into the process at delapena Sintered Products, with every batch measured for specific gravity, to a tolerance of 99.7 per cent accuracy. Full traceability is also an important feature of its process, which includes the ability to trace every honing stick back to the powders used, along with the sintering cycle data from the time of pressing.
Enthusing about the launch, delapena Group chairman, David Arthur, commented, “The launch of delapena Sintered Products is a vital strategic step in our planned growth and completes the full products and service portfolio that will be essential for us to deliver world-class grinding and honing; our clear focus is on improving surface finish in the bore or on the shaft.”
Beyond just precision finishing, honing is now recognised for stock removal, to replace internal grinding and to create geometric integrity with an exact surface finish (holding tolerances down to a micron, with sub-micron adjustment). The honing market is expanding as new applications are introduced and abrasives developed that make it possible to hone an array of materials. These include aluminium, brass, titanium and hard steel as standard, with harder materials such as ceramics, glass, molybdenum and inconel also within honing capability, with the right abrasives. delapena Sintered Products will act as a specialist research and development facility for the honing market, creating specific abrasives for customer’s applications.
The new division’s initial focus will be on supplying automotive OEMs, firstly in the UK and then expanding to fulfil the much wider, global potential. For the domestic market, delapena Sintered Products will help UK-based automotive engine manufacturers to negate any exchange rate issues associated with sourcing from Europe or further afield. Managing director, Martin Elliott, explains, “We have well-developed relationships with the majority of Tier One automotive manufacturers in the UK and understand the quality of abrasives and standard of service that they require. We have built the delapena Sintered Products manufacturing line to meet those standards and to fulfil the market that we know is ready for our products.”
© 2024 delapena group Ltd.
