Over the past 70 years, John Boddy Timber Ltd of Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire has established a reputation as a leading specialist in the field of temperate and tropical hardwoods and softwoods.

The company has always stocked a wide variety of species to keep up with demand trends; today, the fashion is towards dark timbers – mainly a variety of species of oak with a noticeable swing to American black walnut. Character oak with small knots, pippy oak with small ‘cats paws’ and antique oak are now in special demand by John Boddy’s customers and, together with the company’s ability to machine faster and more cost-effectively, it is attracting many more orders for flooring, kitchens, joinery and shopfitting. Its proud claim is that it can now offer any moulding profile in random length, in any timber species, in any quantity, at fast delivery times.

In order to keep up with growing demand for hardwood linear mouldings, John Boddy Timber is investing heavily in moulding machinery. It recently purchased a state-of-the-art Weinig moulding system including a Weinig Powermat 500 moulder with quick set-up PowerLock HSK tooling and PowerCom memory system; an OptiCom tool-setting stand; a Rondamat 960 profile grinder; and a special Friulmac end matching machine for random length flooring.

Initially, John Boddy started its moulding service with two conventional moulders. It was encouraged by the number of new customers it attracted, but the demand for smaller quantities and a greater variety of profiles required new technology for more economic production of shorter runs, quicker setting up and faster throughput, to achieve more competitive prices and quicker delivery.

Works manager Tony Steele researched moulder manufacturers for the most suitable equipment and was impressed by Weinig’s moulder concept. “The features that attracted me most were the HSK tooling and quick changeover system of the Powermat moulders,” he said.

After seeing the Weinig moulding systems in action at Woodmex and visiting the Weinig factory in Tauberbischofsheim, orders were placed and the machinery was installed in 2005 – first the Powermat 500 moulder and OptiCom setting stand, then the Rondamat 960 profile grinder and, more recently, the Friulmac end matching machine for flooring.

The Weinig Powermat 500 moulder has six cutter heads and a touch screen PowerCom memory function that saves up to 10,000 profile and tool setting values, for instant recall. The moulder produces an excellent surface finish at 8,000rpm cutter speeds and up to 30m/min with shortest set-up times. It uses the new technology PowerLock HSK tooling and also makes use of existing conventional tooling with adapters.

“Job changeover times have reduced dramatically, from an average of 40 minutes to 10 minutes,” said Mr Steele. “Machined work pieces are spot on dimensionally and they’re correct first time – there’s no need to check with callipers and no unnecessary timber wastage on trial and error settings.”

The tools are measured on the OptiCom stand in the toolroom. Either PowerLock HSK, or existing conventional blocks can be used. This data enables accurate spindle positioning on the moulder.

The high precision Rondamat 960 profile grinder with pneumatic and motorised movements is used to produce and sharpen cutters to any profile. Its tolerance is below 0.005mm. Once sharpened and measured, tooling set-up time on the moulder is reduced to a minimum.

The Friulmac Randomat EM end matching machine, end-profiles random length components and is designed specifically for flooring, a fast growing part of John Boddy’s business. It is specified to machine up to 300mm widths and is fully automatic, highly productive, quiet in operation, and extremely accurate over long lengths.

“It is a joy to watch it in operation,” said Tony Steele. “And it’s already opening doors for us by attracting new customers.”