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Precision engineering company wins contract for monument build

Story added 15 February 2010.

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HadFab Ltd, who are a long standing customer of FICEP, have recently received a substantial and exciting contract to produce the steelwork for a unique monument in Holland. HadFab, based in Haddington near Edinburgh, have many years of experience in producing complete structures, fixtures, fittings and towers for power and telecommunications. They are now utilising this expertise to produce a unique statue designed by the prominent sculptor Mr Antony Gormley and commissioned by the Dutch government for the town of Lelystad.

Antony Gormley is the world renowned sculptor famous for the 'Angel of the North' and 'Another Place' – the latter consists of 100 cast-iron, life-size figures spread out along three kilometers of the foreshore on Crosby beach near Liverpool.

The new 25 metre high statue, depicting a crouching man, will be completely constructed from steel angle profiles produced by HadFab on the very latest “state of the art” FICEP HP16T6 CNC angle line.

This feature rich FICEP machine has a numerous optional extras available and can be configured to meet the customer's precise requirements. The new technology incorporated in this machine combined with the impressive infeed transfer speed of up to 100 metres per minute gives it a clear advantage.

The machine can be equipped with - automatic feeding and loading, punching, drilling with tool changer, notching, marking utilising cassette or individual characters, quick change punch and die sets, quick change shear blades, automatic part unloading for the out feed conveyor and is further enhanced with the Steel Projects software suite.

This machine was purchased specifically for this contract and now brings the total number of FICEP machines operated by HadFab to 4.

There are many challenges to be overcome with this hugely complicated structure and Tekla software was used after the initial shape was designed in collaboration with Cambridge University. The model is then detailed in Tekla structures and interfaced with Steel Projects WinSteel to produce machine codes for the FICEP Angle Line. The material is punched sheared to length by the equipment and highly skilled labour intensive shaping of the material is done to form up to 550 nodes consisting of up to 27 angles meeting together to form locating points around the structure. These are to be joined together with longer angles bolted and welded in position. In total there will be 4,400 holes punched in the angle profiles and the total weight of the structure will be 60 tonnes. The statue is scheduled to take 18 months to complete.

HadFab’s Managing Director – commented,

“This is a one-off unique structure that epitomises the way software, machine technology and manual fabrication techniques can work together. The challenges of the design, detailing, equipment performance and quality fabricators have been extensive. Numerous companies were initially contacted by Mr Gormley to produce the complex steelwork but most refused the job after completing feasibility studies.

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