Summary
• W8 attendance dipped by 11% – less than expected.
• A total of 230 companies exhibited.
• Exhibitors said they continued to take orders and solid enquiries on their stands.
• Accessible automation and computerisation for SME processors were key machine selling points.
• Automated window and joinery lines made a splash.

It takes two years of hard work to put on a show like W8 Working with Wood, so to go into this year’s event on the brink of the first UK recession in 16 years was never going to be helpful.

The economic malaise, admitted organisers, did have an impact and visitor numbers were down 11% to 9,921 over the October 26-29 show at Birmingham NEC. But exhibition director John Smith-Bodden could be right when he says this performance was “pretty good” considering the difficult times.

Francis Dalton, who sits on the W8 board, found reasons to be positive. “I think this industry goes in [to recession] first and comes out first and I think we’re already looking forward to coming out of it,” he said. “Business will gradually pick up next year.”

German timber frame machinery manufacturer Weinmann lamented the lack of visitors at W8 but had a prominent stand and demonstrated its new WBS 120 high-speed linear saw. It was the first exhibition outing for the five-axis machine, designed specifically for the US and UK 2×4 market.

UKTFA invitation

Weinmann is also wooing UK members of the UK Timber Frame Association with an invitation to its factory – about 20 companies were expected at the November event. “There is still some interest in buying new machinery, but not in big plants,” said Jörg Gross, Weinmann’s project team manager.

Biesse’s stand was busy, with the debutant UniWin window-making CNC centre proving a popular draw.

Biesse’s Steve Bulmer said the company had decided to exhibit only newer technology and not appear as a “warehouse” showing huge numbers of machines. Machines on display included the second series Skipper, the Rover C9 Edge, combing a CNC machining centre with an edgebander. The manufacture of office furniture and shopfitting are typical uses and the machine comes into its own when components have contoured edges.

Wadkin made a late decision to attend and its stand was supported by Biesse, with which it has an exclusive distributorship agreement for the Biesse Artech range.

The company announced that it had been acquired by S&C Holdings, headed by Tony Wilkinson, who had already been a financial backer of Wadkin.

“I have been pleasantly surprised,” said Wadkin chairman Peter Smith. “The footfall has been good.”

A Robinson moulder and Artech edgebander were displayed, with the latter technology representing Wadkin’s first foray into the panel industry.

Servicing makes up the majority of Wadkin’s business, though it still makes grinders and remanufactures machines for customers.

Feeling positive

Daltons’ director Francis Dalton said visitors were “a lot more positive” on his stand than he expected with people talking about their investment plans for the future. “Many people say they are still busy,” he added.

“It’s always disappointing when people do not want to buy machines at shows but I think there is less of that at exhibitions these days. We have excellent enquiries to follow up and, in spite of the doom and gloom in the media, significant business opportunities have come our way as a result of our presence here.”

New to Daltons’ portfolio on the stand included a Houfek CNC machining centre and wide-belt sander, a Salvador optimising cross-cut system, the Elcon Quadra vertical panel cutting machine and a Kuper six-head planer moulder.

SCM booked its four large W8 stands “during the boom days” two years ago and acknowledged that there were concerns whether the outlay would be worth it. But the company was “pleasantly surprised” at the business it picked up.

“I’m not putting figures on the machines sold yet, which included three Ergon machining centres, only to say we are relatively happy with the exhibition, even if the market is not as buoyant as we’d like,” said SCM UK managing director Gabriele De Col.

New SCM classical machines included the T220 Class Tenoner and TI155 EP Class Spindle Moulder, while from group member Gabbiani there was the new T3 beam saw with rear loader. But perhaps attracting most attention was the UK show debut of the Windor 1 CNC window line. “Although we’re showing it for the first time, we have already installed two here,” said SCM’s Mike King. “It brings CNC technology within reach of the three- to five-employee business making traditional joinery and windows and it’s particularly relevant given today’s shortage of skilled machinists.”

The Windor 1, he maintained, could produce all components for a standard window in four minutes. “It’s a culture change for some companies, but we give all the training they need,” said Mr King.

Taiwanese award

The centrepiece on the Leadermac stand was the latest version of its Hypermac heavy-duty planer moulder and an engineer from the company’s Taiwan plant was on hand to explain its automated control systems. The model won a recent Taiwanese engineering innovation award and a 10-head variant is currently being installed at an as yet unnamed leading UK timber processor.

“The version we’ve installed is a major 25-tonne piece of equipment with feed speed up to 120m/min,” said Leadermac UK managing director Kevin Wright. The company used the six-head Hypermac at W8 to demonstrate the automatic spindle adjustment system. This features a camera which takes a magnified image of the tool heads. The software then measures its dimensions every time a new or resharpened tool is loaded and positions the spindles accordingly.

Perhaps the biggest attraction at Weinig’s stand was one of its new Conturex CNC solid wood joinery machining centres designed for window, furniture and other joinery component production. The machine is modular and can develop in line with production requirements. “The show model has a pair of machining heads working independently, each capable of carrying up to 18 tools, with the changer holding 110,” said Weinig’s Paul Heffernan. “But a company in Switzerland specified a model with two pairs of heads, four feed tables and a changer carrying up to 400 tools!”

The Conturex also features Weinig’s PowerGrip clamping system, enabling it to hold small and thin dimensions. It processes components from above and below, undertaking routing, drilling and cutting slots and grooves for window vents and fittings.

New Combilift

Making visitors “stop and look” on its stand, according to four-way lift truck specialist Combilift, was its recently launched CB counterbalance vehicle. “It fills an important gap in the market and is attracting a lot of interest,” said a spokesman at W8. “It’s predominantly designed to handle palletised loads, but also has longer load potential for added flexibility.”

The interior and exterior use CB comes in LP gas, electric or diesel variants and lifts up to 25ft.

Sheet material processing equipment was still at the heart of Homag’s W8 stand – it’s largest ever – but there was also plenty of evidence of its growing focus on solid wood machinery. This included the Profiline BHC460 processing centre from group member Weeke. The two-table machine is designed to switch easily between products, from door and window to staircase components, has an advanced automatic clamping system and works through a 360O axis. Also featured among the enormous range on show was a €10,000 Butfering Optimat SGO109 K wide-belt sander. This operates at feed speeds of 4m and 8m/min and is suitable for calibration and rough and finish sanding of solid wood, plus flush sanding of solid edge bands.

Meanwhile, CNC machining specialist Masterwood found particular interest attracted to its new heavy-duty MW 1836 nesting machine.

Software systems

Masterwood’s head of sales and marketing John Cookson said a key factor still drawing customers was its machine software systems. “In these difficult times, profitability is vitally important and customers recognise the benefits of investing in the latest production technology coupled with our own state-of-the art, easy-to-use specialist software.”

And a newcomer to W8 also reported getting a good reception in the market circumstances. Classic Joinery Software grew out of Masterwood’s own UK software business to offer a range of modular joinery CAD/CAM systems for a range of machine brands. The company, headed by Marc Corlett, hit the market with window and sliding sash software packages.

“The full offer includes systems for cabinet, stairs, door and doorset producers and in the new year we’re launching an office administrative suite,” he said. At W8 the company sold systems to Masterwood, Busellato, Homag and Reichenbacher machine users.