Copier Machinery, a company specializing in pipe machining solutions – pipe bevelling, pipe end working, pipe threading, pipe roll grooving and pipe welding – is now serving the North American market through its warehouse and sales office in Broken Arrow, Okla.
Pipe mills fabricate pipes using a variety of machinery, some of which are used to machine their ends. Standard metal lathes operate (like wood lathes) with the ends held in the chuck with the centre supporting the pipe at the other end as it rotates. However, this does not work for machining the ends. Copier Machinery makes special lathes the other way around where the pipe is held, and the tool rotates to machine the ends.
“In 1997, I was in my 30s and thinking about what to do with my life,” said Jan Copier, CEO of Copier Machinery. “I had developed a very strong interest in machine building and was educated as a mechanical engineer. I had been working as an engineer for approximately 10 years at a Dutch machine-building company when I decided to start my own business. After that, I ran into the design of special lathes to machine pipe-ends, and it started there.”
Copier says pipe piling doesn’t use welding, mainly threading, to join pipe lengths. Using Copier Machinery’s special lathe, clients can have threads on the outside at both ends and use thread couplings or have the thread on the inside and outside at opposite ends to join lengths.
“We can do whatever thread they need, long or short piping,” he said. “For example, in micropiling, (the) machinery that rotates the pipe cannot operate very quickly because the pipe isn’t round and it’s not straight, so rotating it at (a) high speed is difficult and does not give a good product. It is much easier and better quality to cut the pipe and rotate the tool. In Europe, companies that sell pipes do the threading, so the pile driving company doesn’t have to. Sometimes specialized companies produce micropiles for the piling industry using our machinery. They produce a lot of pipes for micropiling, running two or three shifts a day. If a pile driving company is big enough and has the necessary volume, with our machinery, they could do the threading themselves.”
A machine for every pipe
Through its founder’s passion, the company is dedicated to providing the best solution for metal pipe fabrication with its wide range of pipe preparation machinery portfolios for cutting, bevelling, end working, welding and roll grooving. Depending on what’s needed, these machines can work within different diameter ranges.
The Beaver S Series is a heavy-duty machine that creates perfect welding preparations with great precision for pipes with an outside diameter from 0.25 to 56 inches and a wall thickness of up to 25 millimetres in one pass. The Beaver CNC works for multiple applications like pipe bevelling, facing, squaring, deburring, tapering and threading that can be performed on the inside and outside of a pipe without changing the tooling for different angles or shapes. The Beaver CB series is designed with a CNC-controlled system to perform three operations efficiently at once; length measuring, pipe cutting and bevelling with both radial and axial feeding.
The Rotating Tool Lathe (RTL) has the workpiece fixed while the machine’s tool rotates. Just put the pipe in, clamp it and work it, eliminating a long set-up time. With the same machining principles as Beaver S (RTL Z) and Beaver CNC (RTL ZX), the RTL series provide more accurate end results and faster cycle time per bevel.
“We have developed machinery for automatically feeding the pipe to the machines while machining both ends.”
– Jan Copier, Copier Machinery
“We are not only providing a machine, but a complete solution,” said Copier. “Our standard machines can be modified according to our customers’ complex pipe preparation requirements. By means of our market knowledge, experience, customer-centric approach and resources, we have successfully engineered, manufactured and delivered over 400 pipe preparation machinery to more than 40 countries.”
Copier Machinery’s experienced team provides on-site training programs for its customers during set-up to deliver knowledge about equipment usage and maintenance operations. Their salespeople will provide service in the company’s Oklahoma workshop or fly in to meet their customers.
“We want to be close to the customers to give maximum support. However, being in a niche market, we are forced to centralize. This means our staff is ready to fly in and support customers where needed worldwide,” Copier said.
The future of pipe machining
“We see more and more automation in every industry,” Copier said. “We have developed machinery for automatically feeding the pipe to the machines while machining both ends. The pipes can be handled manually or with an overhead crane, but the threading time will be a minor part of the total cycle time. Therefore, efficient and fast pipe handling will have a huge effect on the cycle time and increase the total daily output significantly.
“We are not only providing a machine, but a complete solution.”
– Jan Copier, Copier Machinery
“As well, 4.0 machines are connected to the internet, helping us to support customers. Also, data logging is developed and developing, so the production and maintenance needed are more visible. One year ago, we developed data collection in the machine locally, bringing production data directly from machine to customer with no more cloud connections needed.”
This commitment to their customer’s success and desire to help them achieve maximum performance and quality in production has earned Copier Machinery its worldwide reputation for providing state-of-the-art equipment and complete solutions to every customer’s needs. 
Photos courtesy of Copier Machinery