Update from the workshop:

 

Last week we delivered a project to ANSTO, Australia's Nuclear, Science and Technology Organisation. Specifically to the Synchrotron in Melbourne. The Synchrotron is Australia's most advanced platform for performing scientific experiments with X-rays and high energy particles. For a small company like ours to be approached by a very large, prestigious government organisation is an honour, and I can tell you for free that working with these engineers often makes watchmaking look like Lego Duplo!

The project we helped with was for the manufacture of some ferrite shields. Ferrite is ceramic material primarily composed of Fe2O3. It's very abrasive to cut, and also very hard, being much harder than steel, closer to other ceramics, like aluminium oxide (think dinner plates). Because of these factors, as well as the difficulty in managing the abrasive dust that gets generated through the process, Ferrite is very challenging to machine.

Our approach was to grind the parts in our Kern Micro HD. We used electroplated diamond tools, which allowed us to create all the necessary shapes in the material. One of my favorite things about working with ANSTO is seeing where the parts actually end up. These ferrite shields are going inside a massive instrument currently being assembled in Japan. Jonathan, from the engineering team at ANSTO kindly provided these photos. Absolutely amazing!

Josh.