CABINET MAKER PUSHES MASTERWOOD CNC TO ITS LIMITS

Cutting-edge furniture designer and maker Marcus White has turned his dream into reality with the help of a Masterwood CNC machining centre.

After concentrating on bespoke kitchens and individual pieces he has launched an exclusive limited-edition branded range, ‘Designs by Marcus White', whose components are produced on a Masterwood Winner.

Said Marcus: “Cabinet makers are very traditionally minded and many operate at very low profit margins as they often do it for the love of the job. I decided to look for ways of creating new opportunities for the future of the business.

“I observed that although mass produced furniture makers have embraced CNC, hardly any traditional cabinet makers have. I saw the opportunity to use a machining centre for top quality cabinet making work and fulfil my vision of producing my own branded range.”

Marcus White (left) and Nick Whiting with a complex design produced on the Masterwood CNC machining centre.

The owner of Oorana, a tribal name for a Brazilian palm tree, Marcus is an Oxford physics graduate and former teacher. He set up the business in 1997 in farm buildings in his home village of Buckland Newton , near Dorchester.

“Furniture making had been a hobby for 15 years, said the 33-year-old self taught craftsman, so when the opportunity came up to set up in business I leapt at it.”

He took on his first employee four year's later and now has three full time staff, two in the workshop plus a fitter.

A complex furniture component produced on the Masterwood at Oorana..

Said Marcus: “The furniture market is stuffed full of brands at the bottom and the middle of the market, but no one offers a quality branded range at the top. I intend to fill that gap with radical designs using sexy materials.”

His launch collection includes a column cabinet in Macasa Ebony with Ice-lit Onyx columns and a floating low-ion glass structure, a semi-elliptical grand cabinet in Sepele with curved glass shelves and doors, end-grain Tulip cornice and wood bandings, plus a console table and coffee table in American Black Walnut with Koto wood marquetry.

There's also an Aqua table with an American Cherry superstructure with super mirror finish stainless steel and 15mm thick low-ion glass, with either eight or 10 matching American Cherry chairs with Wenge ribs tracing elliptical paths and aqua blue raw silk upholstery. All the woods are finished with a traditional oil and wax finish.

Nick Whiting (left) and Marcus White with the Masterwood's computer console.

Each piece will be produced in a limited edition of 100 pieces to ensure strict exclusiveness. Retail prices range from £2,450 for the coffee table to £65,000 for the 10-chair Aqua table set.

“You could say a sophisticated machining centre was a bizarre acquisition for a small cabinet making business like ours,” said Marcus. “At the time I had only a few traditional woodworking machines, some of them 50 years old, and it was big technological leap to move up to CNC operation.

“I looked at all the machining centres I could find and Masterwood was head and shoulders above the rest. The Winner offered the best specification available for the cost and has allowed me to have a fully fledged industrial machine at an entry level price.”

It features an eight post tool changer and vacuum pod bed and uses Masterworks, the manufacturer's standard software package.

Marcus White (left) and Nick Whiting with the Masterwood CNC machining centre.

Marcus likes the fact that Masterwood provides its own software; with just one company to deal with if there are problems. “Masterworks is a good piece of software,” he said. “It's simple and straightforward to use and does what I want it to do and more.”

The machining centre processes all the solid wood components for the new branded range. This includes morticing, tenoning, dovetailing, grooving, rebating and moulding, jobs previously done by hand using traditional tools.

Showing a section of the exclusive Aqua table and chair set .

“It cuts out any shape we want it to,” said Marcus. “For example, curved chair rails are cut in sets, in multiple bites, finishing with a clean-up pass. They are then tenoned with the index head, creating components in minutes that would not be as accurate if done by hand. We also use it to make the templates for the furniture's glass components and its accuracy is always spot on.

“We are pushing solid wood machining to its technical limits. Some of the things we have done with it I would not dream of attempting by hand, like successfully reproducing traditional linen fold style panels. We have also made a copy of an 18 th century tall boy with it.”

The Aqua table and chair set, whose components were processed on the Masterwood CNC machining centre.

More basic work includes processing solid wood and plywood and MDF panels for bespoke jobs, including making the carcasses and cabinet doors for kitchens.

Marcus does the design work on his laptop's CAD program, sending the files to the Winner's Masterworks program by wireless network.

Programmer Nick Whiting, a fully trained cabinet maker, operates the Winner, including preparing the machining programs. He said: “It's an easy-to-use machine which is very reliable. We save so much time with it compared to using traditional tools, and always get absolute accuracy however complicated the machining program.”

Marcus said the Winner has opened up opportunities for greater margins. “The Aqua table and 10 chair set takes us around 500 hours to make. It would take around double that if done by hand, and the price would make it unaffordable to most people.”

He now describes himself as a CNC cabinet maker, combining top quality craftsmanship and ultra contemporary designs with the latest production technology. “I believe we are doing what all cabinet makers will be doing within 10 to 20 years. We are the future of cabinet making.”


All enquiries to Masterwood (UK) Ltd, Telephone 01436 675000, Fax 01436 678999, Email masterwooduk@aol.com.

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