Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. provides unrivalled industrial and agricultural machinery manufacturing and repair solutions. We dropped into the company’s state-of-the-art facility on Clonmel’s Cashel Road to find out more about this exceptional, cutting-edge operation from founder / proprietor Michael Burke.
For more than a quarter of a century, Michael Burke of Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. has been providing agricultural and industrial machinery owners / operators with a superb parts remanufacturing / repairs service, putting his vast experience and unique expertise to maximum use and ensuring that equipment is restored to optimal running order.
Indeed, Michael’s uncanny knack for providing incredibly high-quality solutions precedes him; his reputation has spread far and wide throughout the agri and industrial sectors and his services are in big demand with farmers, contractors and other machinery operators the length and breadth of Munster and into parts of Leinster. Amongst other things, Clonmel Precision Engineering is synonymous with premium cast iron and cast steel welding solutions, facilitating the best machinery and parts remanufacturing, refurbishing and repairs service that money can buy. The bottom line is money: Michael’s ability to recondition equipment to a like-new status can result in substantial savings for his customers.
Reflecting on the genesis of his business, the Waterford man notes: “I set the business up in 1989. After finishing college in Dublin, I worked for several engineering companies, including a good bit of work on the continent. This included some big contracts for the likes of Shell and Eircom. For example, I worked on an injection system for Shell, which was fitted on their trucks here in Ireland, north and south.
“In ’89, I started remanufacturing and refurbishing parts and machines for local farmers and contractors. We also do a lot of industrial work for pharmaceutical companies etc. It’s probably 50/50 between agri work and industrial at the moment. We can do literally anything. Once it involves a machine, we’ll take it on…”
In the agricultural sector, Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. has the capacity to fix or remanufacture parts for the full range of machinery, right across the board from tractors to combine harvesters, balers, ploughs, silage wagons, hedge cutters, tankers etc. etc. “Anything you can think of, we can repair it,” Michael confirms. “We work for a lot of contractors and individual farmers as well as a lot of agri machinery garages. We’d have accumulated vast experience of welding in cast iron and cast steel. We also do surface grinding and we’d do a lot of work repairing and refurbishing shafts and gears.
“We can either repair or build up the troublesome part or we can manufacture and install a whole new part. A large percentage of our work would involve hydraulic cylinders – we can make any part of it, repair it or make it complete.
“We can repair the housing and motors in vacuum pumps as well as working on everything from gearbox bearings to flywheels.” One of the many areas in which Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. has earned an exceptional reputation in recent years is the reconditioning, checking, balancing and repair of flail shafts on hedge cutters to make them complete. The feedback on this work has been incredibly positive, with most customers reporting that their repaired / reconditioned hedge cutters are actually working better than they had done when they were new!
Not surprisingly, Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. regularly draws a steady stream of both new and repeat customers from near and far. “The majority of customers come from counties Waterford, Tipperary, Kilkenny and parts of Cork and Limerick but they also come from much further away, from all over Ireland really,” says the driving force behind the state-of-the-art workshop.
Michael is a 100% independent technician and as such is not restricted in any way in terms of the machinery he can work on. “We do our own thing here and we can repair any make or model of machinery, old or new. It makes no difference to us.”
As well as providing an unrivalled service, Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. also offers a prompt one. “It’s normal for us to be called out at any hour of the day by customers in trouble and we always do our absolute best to keep them going. This especially applies to our regular customers – we do everything in our power to get them back up and running as quickly as humanly possible.
“We are prepared to go out and look at any machine and tell the customer what needs to be done. Once we’ve told them what the problem is, I’d be very confident that we are better qualified than anybody else to carry out the work. We are professional and competitively-priced and our track record speaks for itself.”
Michael points out that once you have a good grasp of the mechanics of machinery, the work isn’t as daunting or complex as some might believe: “We’re working with the hardware, not the software, so things haven’t changed a great deal. Once it’s metal of any type, we’ll look at it. It’s mostly metal and plastics that we work on.
“There are four of us working here at the moment, as well as my daughter, Gayle, in the office, and we’re fairly busy. We’re seeing an increase in the workload again and we’re starting to do more cylinder heads on cars again, for example, which we weren’t doing much there for a while. The market seems to be picking up.
“Same with the hedge cutters and agri machinery in general – we’re very busy. We have developed what I would consider to be the best head that you can put on a hedge cutter. We can manufacture a brand-new one to go on any hedge cutter, which is made from heavy material, balanced 100% and runs very smoothly and efficiently. This head is of a very high quality and what we’re hearing back is that it is excellent in every way, with improved performance and also not as hard on bearings etc. We’re proud of the success of that product.”
In many ways, that part typifies the spirit and proficiency of Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. “We don’t copy anything. Everything we use is manufactured from my own experience and derived from what I’ve learned about machinery over the years.”
Michael also told us about another exciting new product that’s coming on stream in the not-too-distant future. He’s keeping the finer details under wraps for the time being but suffice to say that – some 26 years on – the future of Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd. looks extremely bright!
Clonmel Precision Engineering Ltd.,
Cashel Road Industrial Estate,
Cashel Road,
Clonmel,
County Tipperary.
Tel: 052 6125579
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 11, December 2015
Clonmel, Engineering, Precision
