The expanding company made the plunge from a traditional joinery machinery-focused workshop to five-axis CNC machining after installing an SCM Tech Z5-31 during the summer.
Willow Joinery owner Mike Pateman knew he had to follow the CNC route to meet demand from schools and businesses for more bespoke kitchens and bedrooms, in addition to its joinery products.
"I calculated a CNC would improve production times, increase profit margins and enable me to manufacture more elaborate parts for stairs, kitchens and bedrooms now increasingly demanded by customers," he said.
Mr Pateman purchased the SCM Tech he saw demonstrated at SCM’s showroom. The first jobs machined were a heavy-duty fire door, a tray for the delivery of pistons and bedrooms doors with mortise and tenon joints.
He said use of the Tech so far convinced him that it would soon start to pay for itself.
The Tech Z5 features a machining area of 3050x1550mm and* a 15HP Prisma 5 routing head running up to 20,000rpm. A separate F18 drilling unit with 12 vertical and six horizontal spindles enables the drilling of all types of work, while SCM supplies its own Xilog Maestro CAD/CAM software and programming package.
