Honing and grinding machinery manufacturer Delapena Group has launched a new division: Delapena Sintered Products. This specialist manufacturer will develop and produce super abrasives specifically for the honing market at a new purpose-built laboratory in the UK.

Benefitting from a capital investment of more than £250,000, Delapena Sintered Products will have the only sintering manufacturing line for honing sticks in the UK. It has commissioned a new state-of-the-art production centre that includes a specialist sintering press, and mixing and dosing units. In cleanroom conditions, it will be blending its own diamond powders and bonds, with a range of cutting characteristics, and developing bonds to suit all possible honing applications. Honing sticks will be the main product line, with initial capacity to produce over 250,000 sticks per year.

Exacting quality assurance is built into the process at Delapena Sintered Products, with every batch measured for specific gravity, to a tolerance of 99.7% accuracy. Full traceability is also an important feature of its process, which includes the ability to trace every honing stick back to the powders used, along with the sintering cycle data from the time of pressing.

Delapena Group chairman David Arthur commented: “The launch of Delapena Sintered Products is a vital strategic step in our planned growth and completes the full products and service portfolio that will be essential for us to deliver world-class grinding and honing; our clear focus is on improving surface finish in the bore or on the shaft.”

Beyond just precision finishing, honing is now recognised for stock removal, to replace internal grinding and to create geometric integrity with an exact surface finish (holding tolerances down to a micron, with sub-micron adjustment). The honing market is expanding as new applications are introduced and abrasives developed that make it possible to hone an array of materials. These include aluminium, brass, titanium and hard steel as standard, with harder materials such as ceramics, glass, molybdenum and inconel also within honing capability, with the right abrasives. Delapena Sintered Products will act as a specialist research and development facility for the honing market, creating specific abrasives for customer’s applications.

The new division’s initial focus will be on supplying automotive OEMs, firstly in the UK and then expanding to fulfil the much wider, global potential. For the domestic market, Delapena Sintered Products will help UK-based automotive engine manufacturers to negate any exchange rate issues associated with sourcing from Europe or further afield.

Managing director Martin Elliott explains: “We have well-developed relationships with the majority of Tier One automotive manufacturers in the UK and understand the quality of abrasives and standard of service that they require. We have built the Delapena Sintered Products manufacturing line to meet those standards and to fulfil the market that we know is ready for our products.”