With a client list spanning the globe and taking in major players such as Boeing, Hyde Aerospace, BNFL and BOC Edwards, Craftsman Tools forms an impressive success story.

The West-Yorkshire-based company was established 55 years ago and is now a leading light in the toolholding and workholding market, employing 60 people and boasting an annual turnover in excess of £6 million.

Within its workholding range, Craftsman is able to offer a complete series of cubes, either from its plain-faced standard stock, or via bespoke designs to meet exact process requirements.

Each cube allows the loading of a horizontal machining centre pallet with the maximum number of components, helping maximise the productivity of both single and twin pallet machines.

The plain-faced type mounts directly to a standard machine pallet so its faces are ready to take fixturing items. The faces are supplied finish machined, perpendicular to the integral base and edge locations, while "parallelism" is also assured.

These can also be used to apply the "Crafticube" system, which gives incredible flexibility in the application of fixtures to horizontal machining centres. At its heart is the cube; a top quality hollow casting, stress relieved and precision machined.

Its strong construction and integral base ensures dimensional stability and a capacity for arduous work. Two precise dowels on each face guarantee permanent datums and interchangeability of fixture plates.

Other members of the cube family, including hollow tee brackets, triforms and angle brackets, can also accept fixture plates by applying the same principles. These are ideal for the mounting of a series of vice units and other modular arrangements.

US engine manufacturer Dresser Waukesha, which is based near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been a client of Craftsman Tools for several years.

They are worldwide leaders in the design, manufacture and marketing of highly engineered equipment and services sold primarily to customers in the flow control, measurement systems, and compression and power systems segments of the energy industry.

Craftsman Tools managing director Robert Johnson, said: "Dresser Waukesha is in the process replacing its entire manufacturing stock, and this is being carried out as it improves or launches new products.

"As with the aerospace contract, Craftsman Tools was chosen because of the stability and accuracy of our cube holding.

"We've worked with Dresser Waukesha intensively over the past three years to put together a product that best suited their needs.

Robert added: "Our representatives in the US met their chief buyer not too long back who paid us the ultimate compliment by stating that the company will not go anywhere else for its cube systems.

"With so many years experience in the design and manufacture of prismatic workholding systems, we have developed the highest level of expertise in this very important product.

"Our standard range is available on very short delivery, while at the same time we have proved that we can design and manufacture bespoke items to suit any industrial sector."