What we at DIALOG Fitzroy are known for is saying yes to tasks that are not “doable”. The machining of this 12 meter diameter offshore mooring buoy has been one of these!
We had been contracted to change out the huge bearing on the rotating platform of this buoy at Port Nelson, but during the change out it was discovered that the bearing surface flatness was out of tolerance and needed machining. The designer of this buoy subsequently suggested that this job was unachievable without major disassembly but we felt that our experience with in-situ machining would allow us to come up with a way to achieve an accurate result.
DIALOG Fitzroy Solution
We had previously designed one-off equipment for difficult on site milling work and felt confident about this task. So we began development and fabrication of a bespoke milling machine and specialised jig to enable the mill to perform to exacting tolerances. This development required the precise skills of our machining experts, our structural design engineers and detailed fabrication team to complete.
After workshop testing, some very fine tuning and some extremely accurate set up the bearing surface machining was completed and our team was able to complete the reassembly with the new bearing.
