Kalum Downey, Team Leader at Kirkstall Precision
At Kirkstall Precision and Kaleidex, every product, process and breakthrough is made possible by people: the individuals whose care, skill and determination turn precision into progress. In this edition of Made by People, we meet Kalum Downey, Team Leader at Kirkstall Precision, and take a closer look at one of the newest additions to the shop floor: the Star SD-26 Type E.
For Kirkstall, the machine marks a significant step forward in capability. For Kalum, it represents something just as important: a new technical challenge, a new level of responsibility, and a clear sign of how far he has come since joining the business as an apprentice six years ago.
“I’ve been here six years,” Kalum says. “I came through an apprenticeship, and now I’m team leader.”
It is a simple way of putting it. But behind that short sentence is years of hands-on experience, steady progression, and a willingness to take on more, more machines, more complexity, and now more responsibility for others.
Before becoming Team Leader, Kalum had worked across a wide range of equipment in Kirkstall’s turning department, including multiple Star machines as well as fixed-head machines. That breadth of knowledge matters now more than ever, because the latest Star is not just another machine on the floor. It is a serious piece of kit, brought in to support the next phase of Kirkstall’s medical manufacturing capability. And Kalum is right at the heart of getting it up and running.
A machine built for the next level
The new Star SD-26 Type E is designed as a high-spec sliding head lathe for complex work, with a programmable B1 head and a highly configurable setup. Star describes it as a machine developed to give engineers an “ultimate mill-turn solution for complex components”.
Kalum does not describe it like a brochure does. He describes it like someone who has to make the thing work. “Well, it’s got a different layout on the internals,” he says. “It’s got a new block for the turning tooling on the sub-spindle. It gives a bit more rigidity for turning on there.”
That extra rigidity is one part of the story. Another is speed. “This machine, we bought it as well with an electric motor spindle for the live tooling on the sub-spindle side,” he explains. “So that lets us go up to, I think, 60,000 RPM. Before, on any other machine, it was capped at 8,000 for the live tooling. So it allows us to do micro-machining.”
That is a huge jump, and one that matters in the kind of work Kirkstall is increasingly doing.At the moment, the machine is being used for medical components, particularly bone screws of varying sizes for different parts of the body. That means the combination of precision, repeatability and throughput is absolutely critical. “Currently we’re on with a lot of medical parts,” Kalum says. “Mostly bone screws. Varying lengths for different parts of the body.”
Why this Star matters
What stands out most in conversation with Kallum is not just that the machine is more advanced. It is that its features solve real machining problems. One of the biggest examples is its thread-whirling capability.
“On this new Star, it has a new tool for thread whirling, which is linked to its B-axis,” he says. “On other machines, you’d have a tool that you’d have to set at an angle yourself, and then put in the machine and create the thread. With this one, it’s linked to the B-axis, so all we do is tell the machine the angle it needs to rotate, and it will go to that angle, and then it will lock the axis so it can’t come loose.”
“To top it off, it has two of those,” he says. “So we can do two different screws at the same time, if we wanted to.” That says a lot about what this machine brings to Kirkstall. It is not just newer. It is smarter, more flexible, and better suited to the kind of intricate, high-precision, large-batch work the business is taking on.
It also points to something bigger than the machine itself. Investment like this is not only about adding capacity. It is about giving skilled people the tools they need to raise standards, improve efficiency and take on more demanding work with confidence.
Precision, titanium and process validation
Of course, a machine like this does not arrive fully mastered. Kalum has only been working with it for a matter of weeks, and he is honest about the fact that getting comfortable with it has been a process in itself. “I’ve been on it for, I want to say, three weeks,” he says. “It’s really new.”
That newness brings excitement, but it also brings pressure. The internal layout has changed. Visibility is different. Processes need validating. The work itself is demanding. “This machine’s limited to a grade of titanium, which is a medical grade, and we’re sticking to that to not allow any contamination,” he explains.
That focus on titanium is another sign of where Kirkstall is heading. Working at this level means tighter controls, stricter validation, and more scrutiny around every part of the process, from tooling to coolant to repeatability across longer runs.
“We’ve changed the oil that we’re using on that machine to a different brand for, again, the medical standards,” Kalum says. “So just knowing what I can get away with, how it changes my tool life and whatnot.”
Tool life, in particular, becomes much more important when batch sizes increase.
“Until now, we haven’t done a lot of work on titanium,” he says. “Or if we have, it’s been small batch work of maybe 50, 60 parts. But now, going up in scale to doing 450 parts at a time for a single batch, yeah, I have to monitor a lot more now, and that’s why we have to go through these processes and validate them.”
That is where the real story is. Not in some glossy “new machine day” announcement. In the real work of proving out a process, building trust in the equipment, and making sure the output is right every single time.
Built for bigger batches
If the Star machine signals anything, it is Kirkstall’s intent to scale up complex, high-spec production without compromising quality. Kalum is clear that Star machines are well suited to that environment.
“I do know that Stars are basically designed for large batch production,” he says. “And these bone screws that we’re getting are coming in large batches, and obviously, we want a machine that’s capable of running large batches and maintaining the high machining standards and these tight tolerances.”
At the moment, the machine is still in that validation phase. But the goal is clear. “Once it’s up and running, it will be producing continuously, unattended, basically, until we do a program change.”
That matters. Because in medical manufacturing, repeatability at scale is everything. It is not enough to make one excellent component. The challenge is to make hundreds, then thousands, to the same exacting standard.
And that is exactly why this machine matters to Kirkstall and to the wider Kaleidex Group. The right machine at the right moment What also makes this story work is timing.
The arrival of the new Star machine comes at a moment when Kalum himself has stepped into a more senior role. He is no longer only focused on his own output. He is helping prepare work, support others, solve problems and train newer members of the team.
“So, team leader, I will basically prepare their work,” he says. “If I have time, I’ll do their programs… or it will be to assist them, which could be if they’re having problems on the machine, training.”
It is clearly a big shift. “Yeah, it’s a lot more hectic than I thought it would be,” he says.
But there is also a sense that he is exactly where he should be: taking on more, learning more, and helping shape what comes next. “I still find myself learning,” he says.
That line does a lot of work. Because it captures both Kalum and the moment Kirkstall is in. Growth here is not finished. Capability is not fixed. There is more to come.
And that is what makes the new Star machine feel so significant. It is a step forward in machining capability, yes. But it is also part of a wider story about investment, progression and the kind of environment where people can grow alongside the technology they are trusted to run.
For Kalum, that growth has taken him from apprentice to Team Leader in six years. For Kirkstall, it is helping open the door to more advanced medical work, more scale, and more opportunity. And for Kaleidex, it is another reminder that real progress is never made by machines alone.
It is made by people.
