Coast Composites, Santa Ana, California, designs and manufactures medium to large-scale complex moulds and mandrels for the manufacture of composite aerospace parts. It has taken delivery of a high velocity 5-axis milling machine manufactured by Parpas America Corporation.
The Parpas XS Mill has 59 ft (18 m) of X-axis travel and adds to Coast's machining capability for manufacturing moulds from Invar, aluminium, steel, and carbon fibre composites. A patented thermal management system by Parpas improves tolerances by keeping the structure of the machine at a constant controlled ambient temperature.
A second Parpas Duplex XS machine will become operational at Coast Composites in the third quarter of 2014. This will also have 59 ft (18 m) of X-axis travel and two separate spindles capable of cutting two separate tools at the same time.
A Parpas XS machine with 40 ft (12 m) X-axis travel has also been installed at Odyssey Tooling's facility in Lake Orion, Michigan. Odyssey specialises in small to large size moulds, assembly jigs, and transport fixtures.
Coast Composites and Odyssey are part of the AIP Aerospace Tooling Group, a supplier of composite parts, aircraft structures, transparencies, and coating technologies.
