Value for money and a big ‘Y’ axis wins Dugard the order from Langstone Engineering

Thursday August 21 2014

Langstone Engineering Limited is a successful Toolmaker and Precision Engineering company located in Portsmouth, Hampshire.  The business was established in 2001, by present MD Gary Hart, with a focus that was originally solely that of a tool and mould maker.  

However, the company’s knowledge and expertise soon brought them to the attention of the motorsport sector where their company ethos of precision, total quality, fast turnaround and trust were to prove very attractive and much valued by the F1 racing teams.

Langstone Engineering is proud to be a member of the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) – the Unbeatable Global Business Network for Motorsport and High Performance Engineering and is accredited to BS EN ISO9001:2008 standard.  They started in F1 Motor Sports making polished aluminium mould tools to produce the mission-critical carbon fibre composite wings for both the front and rear of the F1 cars, the state-of-the-art wings that produce the down-force and therefore the grip, for the cars.

Autumn 2012 saw Langstone Engineering expand their operations with a move to a brand new factory facility at the Voyager Park site in Portsmouth.  The new factory site was specifically selected because it had easy motorway links and afforded a much larger working area for their engineers.  With this significant investment in new facilities and up to date machinery Langstone are able offer their extensive range of tool-making and precision engineering services, prototype engineering and component manufacture to not only F1 Motor Sports, but also to the Medical, Automotive, Rubber/Plastic, Aeronautical, Marine and Defence Industries.

Langstone Engineering utilise their engineering expertise to assist customers, to design and develop new tooling and prototypes to meet their precise specification requirements.  They also offer a full hands-on, fast-track supply service with a full CAD/CAM support office manufacturing from customer electronic files via CAD/CAM software to their networked CNC machines.  90% of the materials they manufacture from are Aluminium, some titanium and some carbon fibre and they have an extensive machine shop and perform, 5 axis machining, 3D machining, high speed machining, CNC turning and EDM machining.

When it came to making a decision, recently, about investing in new, up to date machinery, a detailed evaluation process encouraged Langstone to buy their first Dugard machine tool.  The machine that they selected was in fact a 3 axis Hedelius travelling column machine with a 2.5 metre X axis.

Let Company Director Chris Powles take up the story: “We looked at two or three manufacturers of machines but the Hedelius came out on top with us every time.  The machine’s capacity was important to us and with the Hedelius we were offered an extended Y axis of 1250mm which made it possible for us to not only machine a larger singular component but also to load the working table with 4 components from a family meaning we could machine more than one part per cycle.  As well as the capacity benefits, the Dugard machine was going to cost us less money, which is also hugely important.  Then finally, their delivery promise sealed the deal.  Most machines of this nature come with a lengthy lead time; with some manufacturers quoting 6 months.  The Hedelius from Dugard was ‘ex-stock’ and therefore readily available to us.”

In concluding, when we asked Chris if Langstone would consider buying another machine from Dugard, his unequivocal answer was: “Without question, yes; if the deal was right and like last time the machine was the best suited to the job.”

If you want to see the Langstone Engineering team up close and personal, they’ll be exhibiting at the Composites Engineering Show 2013 at NEC Hall 5, Birmingham on 12-13 November 2013; you’ll find them in the Advanced Engineering in Action area at stand F115.