History of GMT - Manual Chucks - Part-1

Voltas were the selling agents for GMT chucks. Several initiatives were taken by GMT to help them to sell chucks especially to ordnance factories and BHEL, Tiruchy. This included demonstration of GMT chucks on their lathes. Chucks were given to CMTI and HMT R&D for testing. They inspected our chuck for gripping power and compared the same with Forkardt and Reishauer. Their report were very encouraging. In terms of gripping force GMT chuck was far superior to Forkardt and Reishauer.

GMT Manual Chuck

However, selling GMT chucks against scroll design proved to be a challenge. Without running down the scroll design we were focusing on our chuck's gripping force for machining castings, forgings, aircraft alloys and wherever intermittent cuts on components were the need. The chucks were recommended for gear driven lathes namely HMT H 22, H 26, LB 17, LB 20, LB25 and German, Czech and American gear driven lathes. Full Horse Power could be utilized on the machine using our chuck for machining. This selling point caught the attention of customers and we sold GMT chucks to many industries initially with Voltas and later by direct selling in 1972 after our agreement came to a close with Voltas.

Sri.K.Jagannathan

About the author : Shri. K Jagannathan - Executive Director – Sales & Marketing, Guindy Machine Tools Limited.
Sri.K.Jagannathan is synonymous with lathe chucks in the Indian machine tool industry. He has been with Guindy Machine Tools for over 5 decades. His vast experience and immense knowledge of workholding products is evident in some of the most complex workholding solutions provided by GMT.