A Mansfield joinery works set up to provide employment for people with disabilities now has a £150,000 Homag BAZ 41 CNC machining centre.
The BAZ, supplied by Homag UK Ltd, has replaced a Weeke machine at Sherwood Industries, a company set up by Nottinghamshire County Council to produce mainly office and educational furniture.
It was chosen for its ability to combine CNC processing and shaped edgebanding to meet the company’s expanding requirements.
Machine operator Dave Gray has only one arm but he has had no difficulty switching his skills to the Baz, which uses WoodWop software allowing one-off or batch and series production.
The machine is designed for flexible production including contract furniture, kitchen and bedroom furniture and door manufacture. It is proving popular with component suppliers who are used for outsourcing.
Its 12-place toolchanger houses all processing aggregates needed to flush trim, scrape and finish edgebanded materials, including 0.4mm melamine, 3mm PVC and veneer edging.
A full drilling facility comprising a vertical drill block and a horizontal unit is driven by a 12kW main spindle, with a C-axis for machining at any angle around 360?.
