An East Sussex kitchen door manufacturer claims to have pioneered a technique for making products from a single piece of high impact MDF by using its own software with a Masterwood Winner CNC machining centre.
Since buying the Winner, the Cupboard Door Company has doubled production from 50 to 100 doors a shift, substantially reduced its labour requirements and attracted several major new customers. It previously used traditonal methods to make five-piece MDF doors, using jigs, spindle moulders and other hand tools.
The machine completes all routing operations on every door size, with the door, drawer front and frame cut from one piece of MDF.
About 12 basic parametric software programs for different styles of bespoke doors were created by the Cupboard Door Company. Traditional style raised and fielded panel doors are produced with no joints, which it says are stronger, with no shrinking or warping.
Chris Williams, who started the Seaford-based company in 1976, said the Winner was proving ideal for producing one-offs needed as replacements or extras to an existing order.
The Winner is a 2.45S tubeless bed cantilever-type panel machine with an X axis of 2450mm, Y axis of 1300mm and Z axis of 110mm. Standard features include a 10.5hp router with four-post automatic toolchanger and two working zones.
An optional 14-post tool changer and a smaller five-post version at the box end were specified on the Cupboard Door Company’s machine.
Prices for Masterwood Winner machining centres range from about £40,000-70,000.
