Distributor Van Leeuwen Wheeler is gearing up for the new European Standard for Hollow Bar, EN 10294 – 1. UK general sales manager David Jenkins is heading up a Europe-wide project team for VLWs parent the Van Leeuwen Group to introduce the new Euro standard to its markets. He says: “With manufacturers defining their own clean-turned sizes, customers can be confined to a single manufacturing source to be sure of a uniform dimensional accuracy. A harmonised standard removes these sourcing restrictions and by ensuring that all hollow bar can be manufactured to the same specification, introduces a much greater flexibility to the market. This flexibility also extends to the size range available. With a substantially increased size range and new intermediary sizes, manufacturers will be able to specify feedstock which is dimensionally closer to the finished component, reducing machining and its associated waste.” With the new Euro standard, “nominal size” can be defined as the guaranteed turned size able to be produced with external chucking and machinists can order feedstock by the nominal size (OD x ID) of the parts they intend to produce. The standard applies to machining lengths shorter than three times the OD or shorter than 200mm where three times OD is greater than 200mm. The range of cleaned turned sizes is scales in steps of 5mm, 10mm and 20mm. Established sourcing capabilities mean that Van Leeuwen Wheeler will be able to take advantage of the wider purchasing opportunities offered by the new standard.
