A UK-based supplier of high quality punching technology is playing a crucial role in the production of the new £1 coin.
Bruderer UK has installed an advanced machine into the Royal Mint’s Llantrisant facility, giving the world famous institution additional speed, capacity and flexibility to support the process of the new £1 coin manufacture.
Capable of up to 825 strokes a minute, the BSTA 1600-117B2 is responsible for creating the hard-cut blanks that form one of the first processes in the manufacture of the new ‘Pound’ coin.
The machine has been specified with an 1,170mm press bed length and is capable of feeding material up to 500mm wide by 12 mm thick – ideal for tooling relative to different types of currency production now and in the future.
It also comes equipped with the latest B2 control system, meaning everything can be controlled from the Human Machine Interface (HMI), including full operation setting of the feed and speed, together with monitoring control of the whole stamping operation.
Adrian Haller, managing director, said: “At an investment of over £1m, this is the largest single order ever placed with Bruderer UK and certainly one of the most prestigious, in recent years.”
“Our relationship with the Royal Mint stretches back nearly 40 years, and as part of its latest round of capital investment, we were asked to tender for a new press.”
He continued: “With the tender won, we then had to complete a three-day factory compliance test with the customer production team ensuring the machine met stringent health and safety and engineering guidelines and delivered the promised performance.
“To give an idea of the machine production speed, it can do 14 coins per stoke and 750 strokes a minute, meaning 10,500 coins every 60 seconds. Extrapolating this shows that over 5 million coins are produced every day, based on a standard 8-hour shift.”
Working alongside the Royal Mint, Bruderer took six months to build the machine and three days to install the new BSTA 1600-117B2, a process that would usually take over a week.
This was achieved thanks to careful planning, full co-operation of both parties and the expertise of specialist machinery handling firm Flegg Transport. It also took in initial training for more than 30 different staff, including a number of apprentices.
