The SCM Group, one of the world’s and UK’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of woodworking and panel processing machinery, took the opportunity to show its latest machinery innovations at the recent W14 exhibition at the NEC, Birmingham.

Covering an area of 624 sq m with four adjoining stands, new machines from the classical machine range, SCM’s Premium Division, Industrial, Housing and Furniture Divisions, were mostly running to demonstrate to the many W14 visitors to the SCM stands, the very latest developments that have recently taken place by the SCM Group within its manufacturing facilities in Italy.

Gabriele De Col, SCM Group UK’s managing director, commented on the last day of the event: “We have had an excellent exhibition with many orders and enquiries from across the whole range of the SCM Group’s machinery – from top of the range CNC machining centres and large Stefani edgebanders down to our wide range of SCM and Minimax classical woodworking machines. It certainly confirms that the UK economy is picking up and customers, old and new, are investing in the very latest technology that SCM can offer.”

The Accord 20FX CNC machining centre – for the production of windows, doors, stairs, solid wood parts and for all those processes that require high level machining, while maintaining a high standard in terms of precision and finish quality – was continually demonstrating the machining of four-piece pre-finished window components and the easy setting of the bars and pods on the worktable. Four machines were sold.

A Stefani single-sided edgebander, the latest Laser machine – sold to Brown’s 2000 of Cramlington – was demonstrated and fully operational as if on production, using materials and edgebanding supplied by Browns 2000.

As well as the Laser application, the machine also had the Stefani PUR Slimline gluing system for dual edging, similar to a Stefani edgebander already on production at Browns 2000.

Such was the quality of finish of the panels produced, the Stefani machine always had a crowd of customers around the machine and the enquiry level was extremely high with additional sales assured.

For drilling panels, a Cyflex F900 PRO BR was demonstrating the ease of setting up and machining of panels, for example, the production of carcasses for kitchens, bedrooms, offices etc.

Productive and versatile due to the worktable that does not require any adjustment between different panel configurations and the high capacity boring head, with 18 vertical and horizontal spindles and the possibility of performing routing and grooving operations, ensures the Cyflex is becoming a very popular machine, confirmed by the sale of five machines.

For planing and moulding, the latest SCM Profiset 60 planer moulder is designed to be very sturdy with four, five or six spindles, with a Universal spindle available at the outfeed with 240mm capacity.

The new feed system using Cardan joints and gearboxes is the technological heart of this machine providing higher productivity and a better finish to the machined timber. Features include pneumatic pressure on the 120mm diameter feed rollers and the inverter for continuous speed control guaranteeing a powerful, efficient and linear feeding of timber.

Equipped with a pre-straightening system through the reference engraver placed on the inferior planer spindle, it also has a 2000mm infeed table length. Several orders and enquiries were taken on this very popular machine with joinery and moulding companies.

Exhibiting for the first time was one of SCM’s latest edgebanders, the K560 TER2, a compact and productive machine that has been designed to operate for long production periods per day with an 18m/min feed speed.

SCM says it is the perfect solution for all companies that require high productivity when edgebanding a large number of different panels at the same time. Complete with infeed planing heads and corner rounding, many types of edging materials, including 2-3mm ABS and laminate, were applied. Several machines were sold.

From the Classical SCM range, an SI 5, one of the SCM Group’s new range of L’Invincible sliding table panel saws, that can be customised to each customers’ exact requirements and include a number of programming and electronic features, was on display.

The sliding carriage provides a maximum quality of cut, guaranteed for 10 years from day of delivery. The carriage will never require adjustment and due to the structure with arch-ground steel slideways (an SCM exclusive and patented design), it can bear loads four times higher than other saws. The horizontal positioning of the guides ensures protection from dust therefore improving the sliding motion of the carriage.

Other machines that were much demonstrated and received a considerable number of enquiries and orders were the Pratix S, Tech Z1 and Z5 CNC machining centres, Sandya 300 wide-belt sander, Morbidelli Uniflex HP CNC drilling machine and, of course, the SCM and Minimax Classical woodworking machines.

Gabriele De Col concludes: “After all the hard work by our sales and engineering staff before and during the W14 exhibition, all the effort certainly paid off and was confirmed by the number of customers on our stands requiring demonstrations, information and wanting to negotiate orders.

“Our office will be busy in the next few days sending the many orders to our Italian factories and our sales and distributing personnel contacting customers to close more deals for SCM Group machines.”