MTR Rebuilds and Retrofits Your Large Machine Tools
Machine Tool Research, Inc. has a long history of building and rebuilding machine tools. Replacement of your old, worn VBM, Lathe or other large machine tools, can be a huge capital investment. Fortunately, replacement may not be necessary to bring your machines’ controls, speeds, feeds and tolerances up to today’s standards. In most cases, MTR can rebuild or retrofit the majority of the machine tools out there to meet the specifications you require – for approximately two-thirds the cost of comparable new equipment.
MTR has partnerships with Fanuc, Seimens and Heidenhain, giving us the advantage of providing our customers with products, support and applications. We support PLC controls and other CNC control manufacturers to suit your shops requirements. Our controls engineers have the ability to design and implement a new control for your machine for your machine modernization. We have fabricated and installed updated CNC controls for decades.
Rebuilds
MTR has the experience and expertise to restore your current machine to OEM standards; repairing damage and wear to like-new condition and revitalizing for years of problem-free operation. Our rebuilds start with a comprehensive disassembly and component inspection process with regular customer communication for updates to timeline, expense and status.
MTR has the following capabilities but is not limited to:
- Fabrication of weldments
- Hydraulic and hydrostatic upgrades and designs
- Grinding of centers
- Precision grinding spacers
- Tapered shoe repair and replacement
- Way and liner repair or replacement
- Scraping and inspecting contact and geometry of machine ways
- Screw alignments
- Bushing and bearing replacements
- Thread repair
- Joining machines together to add length or features
- DC to AC control conversions
- CNC upgrades
- Motor tuning
- Scale replacement and modernizations
- Setting gear contact and backlash
- Reverse engineering of outdated and no longer available parts
- Level and alignments
- Lubrication tuning and/ or replacement
- Bearing pre-loads
Retrofits
Machine retrofits are an economic option to modernize your current machine to updated standards without replacing the machine, changing the foundation and waiting for a new machine to be produced. Some changes to your machine may include:
- Upgrading an acme screw to a ball screw.
- Enhance the carriage, saddle, or table drive with an anti-backlash twin- pinion drive system.
- Adding palletized attachments.
- Fabricating and integrating a new live spindle.
- CNC upgrade – Fanuc, Siemens, or Heidenhain.
Modernizing your machine tool provides a cost-effective means to enhance operational capabilities, streamlining productivity, a huge return on investment to the machine, and leverages commercially available components for greater maintainability and safety.
Types of Machine Tool Modernizations
Mechanical Builds, Rebuilds
and Retrofits
Manual to PLC or
Manual to CNC
CNC
Upgrades
MTR received two Betts lathes for headstock and tailstock rebuilds. Bed sections were modified for cross-compatibility and one of the lathes was enlarged. Both carriages were retrofitted with twin-pinion anti-backlash drives, dual tool swords, cross-slide ball screw drives and overhead power tracks. Headstocks were modified with a spindle brake and encoder. Lastly, a Fanuc CNC control was integrated to support multi-axis cutting of tapers, radii, chamfers and threading. This customer benefited from a comprehensive mechanical and electrical retrofit.
This heavyweight in the power generation industry requested us to rebuild their 1950’s planer mill and retrofit it with a new control, completely hydrostatic ways, and a live spindle with interchangeable head units.
A motor rebuild shop was in need of a niche lathe that could turn commutators. MTR sourced a Betts lathe dating back to the 1970’s that fit the necessary size profile and customized it by shortening the lead screw and bed. The machine was head-to-toe rebuilt and retrofitted with a new PLC control. Machine tags and safety labels were updated to modern standards. Our customer was able to increase their rotor refurbishment throughput by 200%!
