The biennial W series of exhibitions at Birmingham NEC have had some good outings in recent years.
Here, machinery, software and components for the joinery, sawmilling, furniture and timber construction industries are demonstrated on a biennial basis.
With the UK’s vote to leave the EU in the back of people’s minds, it was an interesting test of the industry’s sentiment on investment.
Final visitor figures are not available yet for the combined W16 and rejuvenated “Elements” components show but the good news is that from a large number of exhibitors it was a story of quality enquiries, with visitors planning upgrades and new projects.
Brexit and the concerns that may come with it do not appear to be having a negative impact on business confidence in many industry sectors.
Advanced Machinery Sales reported its “best ever sales” at the biennial W exhibition. The company said it had already booked for W18 with a 25% increase in stand size.
Machinery distributor Daltons Wadkin also said it had record levels of enquiries at the event, declaring W16 as the best UK exhibition it had been at for a decade.
“In a post-Brexit business climate Daltons Wadkin was surprised and delighted by the positive nature and sheer number of enquiries received at the show for its range of high profile and high tech equipment,” said the company.
“A good solid show with an enquiry level we have not seen for several years”, reported managing director Francis Dalton.
Biesse’s post-show analysis cited £15m of sales and opportunities, recording 1,000 visitors to its stand. It declared that the enquiry levels meant the future was bright.
Software supplier Cabinet Vision also declared “great results” and had booked for W18 already.
Daltons Wadkin once again showed a wide range of solid wood and panels technology. The latter has been expanded in recent years, with Polish-made Kimla CNC routers being one of its success stories.
In the three years it has been selling Kimla machines, it has sold about 20 units. This year it added Spanish-made Cehisa edgebanding technology, as a result of its new distributorship with the company.
A Salvador Superpush 200 crosscut saw took a central position on Daltons Wadkin’s stand, while other machines present included the Kuper range of moulders.
Among technology attracting attention at JJ Smith’s stand was MBA Mobi-One timber frame machinery.
Director Martin Smith said the buoyant building industry was good news for its range of timber frame processing machinery.
“The building industry is still buoyant and I do not think Brexit will make any difference.
“Demand for modular housing is good. Some builders who have been doing some site built homes are now thinking about elements of offsite building.”
JJ Smith also showed visitors its stable of cross-cutting products, which ranges from Cursal to Stromab and H&M, as well as Intorex lathes.
The company also marked a milestone at W16 – several staff celebrating working 40 years with the company, with a presentation held to mark the long service.
Weinig and sister company Holz-Her exhibited alongside each other. Holz-Her had a number of machine solutions on show, including the Evolution 7405 fully automatic vertical CNC machining centre with vacuum clamping, footprint of less than 5sqm and four-sided milling facility. Some decorative routed panels were on show to demonstrate what the machine was capable of producing.
Weinig once again demonstrated its hugely successful Cube planer/moulder. It has sold 96 Cubes in the UK now.
Other popular units on display included the OptiCut C50 Dimter with laser automatic width measurement.
The Raimann VarioRip 310 was also a focus of attention. A hardwood processing business bought the unit at W16. Weinig
says the technology can reduce waste levels by two to three times and effectively pays for itself in operational savings. The other news at Weinig UK was it has invested in a new site to double size to 16,000ft2.
Titan Entertains Crowds Meanwhile, over at the sprawling Homag stand there was a new star in town. Titan, Homag’s robot, was a popular figure at the last Ligna show and he was here to give regular technology tours for visitors.
We caught up with Homag UK’s managing director Paul Cooper.
“Capital investment tends to go in peaks and troughs. Last year was very good,” he said. “We have had three really strong years and enquiry levels are still strong.”
He said Homag was expanding more from its traditional panels into solid wood and reported quite a lot of business in staircases.
For the first time in the UK, Homag demonstrated the Bütfering SWT 225 sander with new features. It now features a greater range of automatic thickness adjustment and constant working height. With a choice of four heads which can be specified in single and twin head configurations to give seven different machine types, the SWT 225 RH is billed as a versatile sanding solution for all manufacturers.
Also making its UK debut at W16 is the new WEEKE Venture 115M, a compact entrylevel 5-axis CNC processing centre. It’s small footprint, table design, mobile control unit and new ‘convenience package’ are designed to give an edge in terms of affordable productivity and performance.
The Venture 115M’s installation area has been reduced by 15%, with the operator now having free access from all sides, allowing 360 degree loading of the work table.
SCM had an interactive exhibition space of over 7,000ft2, demonstrating over 20 of its machines and dedicated software solutions. It reported considerable interest from its UK customers, though managing director Gabriele De Col said bigger projects had stalled a bit but smaller customers are still going ahead with investments. A focus for SCM was its Xilog Maestro software suite for machining centres incorporating several new features. For panels this included demonstration of CAD/ CAM software for designing 3D objects on 5-axis machining centres.
This was used for the first time with the Morbidelli Cyflex HP boring machines to improve boring. This new feature helps the operator integrate use of the Cyflex boring machine with any other CNC machining centre in the group.
Making its first appearance at the woodworking and machinery exhibition, the Cyflex HP CNC drilling centre is SCM’s compact solution for batch-one production, capable of routing operations on five faces of the panel.
The machinery line-up also included live demonstrations of the new Startech CN CNC universal drilling centre, a new Universal NB boring and CNC working centre, K560 Airfusion edgebander and the multifunctional Planet P800 working centre for drilling, routing and edgebanding.
Biesse said W16 was its most successful W show to date, with 46% more display space than W14 and an emphasis on “smart” working. It exhibited production line operations with nesting and edgebanding cells, demonstrating that smart working was available and economically viable to the SME sector as well as larger woodworking manufacturers.
A total of 19 machines were on show over the three Biesse stands, including a selection of cost effective, smaller edgebanders, panel saws, sanders and CNC machining centres, purely aimed at the smaller manufacturers, who may only just be starting out in the automated manufacturing arena.
Making its UK debut for Biesse was the W4 PRS (panel return system) with Stream A edgebander designed to demonstrate its ability to eliminate time losses and increase output by up to 25%. The Italian manufacturer also displayed its Sektor beamsaw and Rover B FT with new K3 Winstore board storage and loading system, which can sort out boards for the next working in order of workflow.
A Rover Edge A was sold on stand on the Monday to Bulgaro Interiors, with one of the main selling points the ability to produce more complex shapes faster.
