The School’s machine shop is co-located with the Petrology Group laboratories and is a vital resource for the design, manufacture and maintenance of our cutting-edge experimental facilities. 

The machine shop is staffed with two highly skilled machinists and includes an array of equipment, including lathes large enough to turn the rams on our multi-anvil presses, band saws, pillar drills, CNC milling machines, welders and hand tools. The facility also houses a dedicated lathe for turning ceramic parts for multi-anvil experiments. The staff in the machine shop help to troubleshoot and maintain our equipment as well as helping to design new kit. 

In 2022, a new CNC milling machine was installed. The Ajax Machine Tools AJPR350 is fully programmable, has a 1 micron resolution in all three dimensions and a spindle capable of 24,000 rpm so that it can machine all materials, including very hard ceramics. The rationale behind this machine is to dramatically speed up the production of parts for multi-anvil press assemblies to increase experimental reproducibility while also reducing the failure rate. 

Also in 2022, a Prusa Research i3 MK3S+ 3-D printer was installed in the Petrology Group labs. The printer has a build volume of 25 x 21 x 21 cm, a 0.4 mm diameter nozzle and can print objects that contain up to five different materials (including different colours). The printer is primarily used for prototyping new equipment for the labs before final manufacturing in more expensive materials, making items for the lab for which plastic is an acceptable material and creating a variety of teaching aids (geological cross-sections, topographic maps, fossils, crystal structures and more). 

Example 3-D printed parts