A traditional joinery firm has gone down the CNC route after facing increasing demand, a shortage of skilled staff and pressure to keep costs down.

Wetherby-based Longwood Joinery Ltd invested £100,000 in a Masterwood Project CNC machining centre to improve production of staircases for the likes of housebuilders Persimmon and Barratts.

Works manager Peter Long said the buoyant housing market is boosting staircase demand, aided by the fact that some housebuilders are now putting up three-storey properties which require more stairs.

The three-axis Project 320RL is used to trim, cut to size, route, mortice and tenon virtually all the staircase components, reducing production time by between a third and a quarter.

It is a 4.5m-long bed version, ideal for handling long components, with a tubeless type working table and eight aluminium supporting bars and 10 suction cups.

&#8220With the process now largely mechanised, we consider we are in the business of manufacturing staircases rather than making them”

Longwood works manager Peter Long

The carousel-type tool changer has eight positions for ISO 30 cones, an X axis working stroke of 4500mm and a displacement speed of 100m/min, a Y axis stroke of 1350mm and a Z axis workable thickness of 100mm for routing operations.

Mr Long said: “With the process now largely mechanised, we consider we are in the business of manufacturing staircases rather than making them.”

Design time has been drastically reduced by Masterwood’s CAD program, while the Project’s accuracy is leading to savings in raw materials.

The next step for Longwood, expecting a turnover of £1.4m this year, will be using the machine in production of doors. It also produces windows and external features such as barge boards.