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Masterwood (UK) Ltd, St Andrew's House, 13 East Abercromby
Street, Helensburgh G84 7SP.
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MASTERWOOD TECHNOLOGY HELPS DOUBLE DOOR MAKER’S TURNOVER
The introduction of a Masterwood Winner CNC machining centre has led to a doubling of turnover at specialist fire door maker MDS Ltd.
The Aldridge, West Midlands business specialises in producing bespoke non-standard size fire doors which are supplied in an extensive range of finishes including painted, veneered, laminated, fire retardant Acroyvn faced PVC and steel faced. Its customers include hospitals, schools, airports, government buildings and major retail store groups across the UK.
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Masterwood Winner CNC machining centre in use at
fire door manufacturer MDS Ltd.
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Like many small joinery companies MDS had relied on a variety of traditional woodworking machines. But, as managing director Mike Cole explained: “We urgently needed more manufacturing capacity because although we were winning orders we had increasing problems in getting the work out on time, due to the laborious methods we were using. We realised that the only sensible way forward was to move up to CNC operation.”
Since buying the Winner 2.45S and benefiting from the considerable time saving and improvement in accuracy it provides, MDS’s operations have been transformed. It has been able to introduce additional glazed models to its product offering and now provides customers with ready-to-hang door sets, which has led to the doubling of turnover.
Before the Winner came on the scene it was able to produce around 100 doors a month, which has now increased to between 200 and 400.
MDS buys in door blanks whose core consists of three-section particle board, either 44 or 54mm thick, in four sizes ranging from 7ft x 3ft up to 9ft x 6ft. These are now put on the Winner instead of a panel saw to be sized, a change that has delivered remarkable time savings.
“It used to take an operator using the panel saw four hours to cut down a 20 pack of doors but we can do it in 30 minutes with the Winner,” said Mike Cole. “We didn’t buy it to cut down doors and intended to continue using the panel saw, but as it’s so much quicker at it it’s an additional bonus”.
After being sized the doors are lipped in hardwood on a RF machine. They then go back on the Winner to be trimmed to the correct size and have holes for vision panels, handle and locks cut out as well as having the recesses for the hinges routed out.
Thanks to the Winner’s versatility MDS has been able to add several more styles of vision panels to its range, styles that were previously considered too complicated and time-consuming to be attempted using hand routers.
As everyone in the workshop used to be so busy, an outside carpenter had to
be brought in to cut out the doors’ hinge recesses using an overhead
router. By doing it on the Winner at the same time as the holes for the vision
panels are cut out, it saves both time and the extra wage costs involved.
MDS also takes full advantage of the Winner’s versatility to cut out the hinge recesses in the door frames. This has allowing them to offer pre-hung door sets, a development that has been warmly welcomed by customers and which has played a part in the sales boost. Previously, doors were supplied for customers to hang themselves.
Production director Jon Salmon is impressed with the Winner’s precision. “When you are supplying door sets they have to be consistently spot on, which the Winner achieves every time with its accuracy of .10mm.”
MDS chose the Italian-made Masterwood Winner 2.45S, supplied by Masterwood UK Ltd, after deciding it was perfectly suited for door set work. A variation of the standard machining centre, it is purpose-designed for door and door frame machining, incorporating three routers, one vertical and two horizontal.
It is a cantilever type machine with an X axis of 2450mm, Y axis of 1300mm and Z axis of 110mm (useable), all with brushless motors. Standard features include a 10.5hp router with four post automatic tool changer and two working zones. It comes with an option to replace the four post tool changer with an eight or 14 post carousel tool changer that travels with the carriage.
The software used by MDS is Masterwood’s own easy-to-use Masterwork,
a Windows-based program that works with any PC and incorporates CAD for design
work. Programming is carried out at the machine by Jon Salmon, who is building
up
a bank of program details for repeat use which will help cut down set-up time still further.
Both he and Mike Cole travelled to Masterwood’s factory in Rimini for initial training on the Winner. This was supported by further on-site training provided by a Masterwood UK engineer after he had installed and commissioned the unit.
“Being new to CNC work I was a little apprehensive at first, but after a month I felt totally confident in using the Winner as the software is so user-friendly and simple to follow,” said Jon Salmon.
