Salcey Precision engineers success with MecWash

Salcey Precision Engineering is celebrating a successful 12 months using a MecWash AVD 300 to clean the complex motorsport and aerospace parts manufactured at its Northants production facility.

Salcey installed and commissioned the AVD in June 2012 to replace manual solvent based cleaning and save time processing parts on the shop floor, following a new contract with a significant supercar manufacturer which demanded much larger volumes than the company had previously been asked to deliver.

Founded in 1972, Salcey specialises in engineering components used in the Aerospace, Medical and Motorsport industries. It was approached by a UK super car manufacturer in 2011 and now manufactures precision head train components in large volumes for this particular customer, as well as parts used in F1 cars.

The supercar contract resulted in Salcey investing in additional equipment to enable it to meet both the volume and precision demanded – the customer required delivery of 2000 components per week, as opposed to the 2000 per year produced for F1 cars.

The nature of the application demands the highest precision as Managing Director, Richard Alcock, explains, “We are producing extremely high volumes of very precisely engineered components - some of the angles that we have to maintain on one of the components in particular are very tightly controlled. All aspects of the production process must ensure that the tolerances are adhered to so it was vital that we introduced a cleaning method that could cope with the volume going through, as well as achieving the required high level of cleanliness.”

The AVD is a compact version of the proven Midi and Maxi systems, developed specifically for precision industries where the manufacture of complex and intricate machined or pressed parts require very high standards of cleaning, surface finish and drying. It offers a number of customisable, programmable features including rotational ultrasonic wash, flood rinse, oil separator and high velocity blow dry and vacuum drying.

Richard continues, “We’ve been really impressed with the AVD’s performance over the past 12 months - not only does it successfully remove all oils, greases, honing, lapping and polishing residues from even the most intricate parts, it also guarantees that all moisture is removed thanks to its blow dry and vacuum dry functions. This capability is especially important for us as we need to make sure that all contamination that could gather in deep bores within complex Motorsport parts is removed.”

MecWash Managing Director, John Pattison, says, “The AVD was perfect for Salcey’s requirements – high volumes of precisely engineered components that required a very high standard of cleaning within a small footprint.”

Find out more about the AVD from MecWash or call 01684 271600 for more details.