In just 12 months since two English partners purchased the design and manufacturing rights for the Yorky Type “O” Oilfield Grinders, Graham Thomas and Chris Poole have delivered five of the award-winning machines. Thomas, managing director of Broadbent Stanley, and Poole, managing director of the GAC Group, won their latest order from the Baker Hughes Group for installation at the Baker Oil Tools Baku operation in Azerbaijan.
But for Thomas and Poole the story unfolds some 2,500 miles closer to home – in Aberdeen, Scotland, with machine tool sales and service specialists Mobar Ltd.
Arthur Mowat takes up the story: “I’ve been involved with machine tools for more than thirty years and set up my own company with fellow shareholder Peter Barlow a couple of years ago, offering an all encompassing service to our customers. We don’t just supply machinery, but service and install as well, and have built an enviable reputation in a fairly short period of time for the quality of our service and competitive prices — and we believe that is what attracted Baker Hughes’ interest.
“They approached us initially on a consultancy basis to locate an oilfield grinder for them,” Mowatt continues, “and we in turn contacted a number of companies, including Broadbent Stanley, to evaluate their products. It soon became apparent Broadbent Stanley’s Yorky grinding machine stood head-and-shoulders above the competition, so we had no qualms in recommending their machine. It was the only purpose-designed, heavy-duty machine with a hollow spindle and traversing wheelhead, rather than the old-fashioned (and somewhat cumbersome) traversing table type.”
Available in manual, semi-automatic or full CNC versions, it was specially designed to accommodate all oilfield grinding applications from casings to stabilisers, drill heads and hydroclean bars, along with all types of mills, reamers, and fishing tools. As the Baku facility applications are mainly for “one off” fishing tools, the manual version was deemed ideal. Optional equipment included an internal attachment for grinding the fishing tool bores and a series of quills to grind from 1 in. to 6 in., in inch increments.
The Yorky has a 44 in. (1,118 mm) swing over the slides with 120 in. (3,048 mm) between centres with the hollow spindle diameter of 12.2 in. (310 mm) Max component length is 472 in. (12,000 mm) with a weight of 11,000 lbs (5,000 kg.)
