Engineering Subcontractor Magazine May/June 2025 – read full article

MEET THE TOOLING SURGEON

When you send out the S.O.S to NTR’s Tool Health Heroes, you can be sure you’ll receive the skills and help of all the medics. From the refurbishment of metal cutting tools by the Tool Dentist, the repair and servicing of live tooling by the Driven Tool Doctor, the famous eco credentials of Nurse N. Viro, to the highly regarded skills of the Tooling Surgeon – the team is all set to assist.

Founded 47 years ago, NTR Ltd has gone from strength to strength since its acquisition by investors in July 2016 and is now thriving under an Employee Ownership Trust. Based in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, the business serves the UK and 14 countries across Europe and boasts an enviable blue-chip customer list in designing and manufacturing new tooling.

Managing director, Chris Weeds, explains, “At NTR, we sometimes forget how talented our team is and take our in-house skills for granted. However, we have an incredible 468 years of tooling experience in our team, so when we came up with the name ‘Tool Health Heroes’ it was a true celebration of the talents that customers call on every single day. Some would argue that our most talented hero is the very skilled Tooling Surgeon!”

Like all medics at the top of their game, the Tooling Surgeon, who designs and creates metal cutting tools from scratch, is known for her proficiency, unflappable skills and the ability to bring tooling back to life. Her team feel privileged to have both a varied and a high-end customer list including numerous household names.

IN THE OPERATING THEATRE

By harnessing the team’s many years of expertise, Chris and operations director, Sam Wood, have built a surgery team of which they are rightly proud. Metal cutting tools have always been at the heart of NTR, the refurbishment of very complex tooling is their bread and butter, but their ability to design new tooling, re-engineer existing ones and resurrect discontinued tools, is where their expertise really shines.

Chris gushes, “I’m an engineer at heart, but the complex geometry that the team work with is just mind-blowing. One day they might be re-engineering a discontinued porcupine cutter with 32 pockets and carbide inserts for a customer in Italy, the next they might be prototyping an end-mill cutter for a leading UK aerospace company.”

THE PROCEDURE

When the call from a customer comes in and NTR’s version of the bat-symbol goes up, the first line team jump into action:

1. A reply is sent via phone or email within 24 hours
2. The on-call surgeon is notified
3. Info is gathered by photo, call or meeting – a quote is generated
4. Requirements are grouped into:
   – New Tooling
   – Re-engineered Tooling
   – Discontinued Tooling
5. A CAD/CAM drawing and render is created and signed off
6. A prototype is created if required
7. The new tooling goes into production
8. Tooling is sent out for specialised coating/heat treatment
9. Inserts may be ordered as the tool enters final inspection
10. Finished cutting tool is sent out via 24 hour, insured courier

DIAGNOSIS

Like an A&E emergency, a tooling request will often come in with some urgency. The team act quickly to understand the customer requirement and the issues causing their workflow. The requests are triaged into the following types – for one-off specials or batches:

• New Tooling: A new project that requires a well-designed tool to enhance production and manufacturing capabilities
• Re-engineered Tooling: Metal cutting tools that are not fit for purpose that may need issues designing out 
• Discontinued Tooling: If the Tool Dentist can refurbish an existing tool while the Surgeon recreates a new one, then production can continue unabated

Sam happily makes business “home visits” too, to discuss specific. He explains, “A production or a toolroom manager will share their frustrations of down-time, but quite often it’s a machinist who will have a clear insight into cutting performance, failure modes and issues caused during production.”

He continues, “I learned my skills as an apprentice on the shopfloor, specifically milling and grinding in our repair centre. The machinists who taught me, have an incredible ability to use all their senses when working. I like to tap into a machinist’s knowledge when redesigning tooling, because they know the tool intimately, and appreciate the foibles of the machine it sits on. This approach is part of the Tooling Surgeon’s success.”

SECTORS

Working in the sectors that they do, means the NTR Team work to tolerances as low as .005 microns. Customers in nuclear, automotive, aerospace and defence rely on the Tooling Surgeon for true precision engineering capabilities, but this is only half the story.

Engineering manager, Mick Sykes has over 40 years’ experience alone, in everything from designing new tooling through to dies and punches, and fixtures and jigs. It is Mick’s can-do attitude that makes him a key member of the NTR Tool Health Heroes, “Like most engineers, I was very hands-on when I started out. As technology developed, I saw that CAD systems were the way forward. Being able to show customers a 3D render of the finished tooling, was a game-changer for NTR and now our CAD/CAM capability is paramount to our success in sectors notorious for exacting standards.”

Mick elaborates, “Thanks to our decades in the field, we also have a network of trusted partners for specific materials, unusual coatings and the supply of OEM parts. No matter how precise we manufacture the tooling, without the skill of these experts specialising in hardening, tempering, and treating, we could not meet the standards required.”

STUDENT DOCTORS

One of Sam’s tasks is to recruit more heroes to join the team. As a one-time apprentice of NTR, he is a believer in bringing young people into the business. “I completed my apprenticeship with NTR in 2012 and I’ve worked on so many amazing projects. Within my first year of earning my superhero cape, I had tackled tooling projects in electronics, transport and defence. If you had told me the day I left school, which customers I would be working with now, I would never have believed it!”

Mick agrees, “Last year I worked on a very special die project working in sheet silver of all things. I never imagined I’d be creating the punch and dies for a set of luxury photo frames, but here we are. I recently visited a famous London department store and there the frames were! At NTR, our capabilities are huge – I’d recommend an NTR Apprenticeship to any young person to join our band of heroes.”

WORKING WITH THE TOOL DENTIST

NTR is a true one-stop toolroom and the teams often work in collaboration. A recent customer was in urgent need of a batch of new porcupine cutters discontinued by the OEM. Suddenly, factory output had stalled, and the company was about to miss significant deadlines.

In such cases, the Tool Dentist can often intervene, while the designing happens in the operating room. Charlie, manufacturing manager says, “As manufacturers ourselves, we know what down-time means, so if we can save you from any such failures and keep you going, we will 100% do that. As Tool Health Heroes, we regularly work with the Tool Surgeon, repairing and refurbishing your damaged tooling, with a short lead-time to keep production running.”

THE FINAL CHECK-UP

After any surgery, the patient will need a final inspection before being discharged – metal cutting tools are no different. Throughout the production procedure the team measure, check and verify at various stages to ensure the new tooling is measuring up to standards.

Heat treatments, finishing and coatings can cause changes to the tooling, so final inspection involves a rigorous system of checks using the Royal camera to check geometry and the Trimos digital vertical gauge to measure height as part of the wider metrology. As soon as your new tooling has passed this thorough final inspection, the ‘patient’ is signed off, discharged and expedited out to you.

AND FINALLY…

Chris concludes, “I’m very proud of the NTR team and the standard of work from the Tooling Surgeon and the rest of our Tool Health Heroes. If you have a project coming up that requires the design and manufacture of precision metal cutting tools, then get in touch – we really are here to save the day!”

NTR Ltd

Tel: 01937 845 112

Email: Chris.Weeds@ntrltd.co.uk

www.ntrltd.com