Kesseler UK Ltd is a furniture manufacturer that prides itself to produce some of the most refined kitchens in the world. Attention to detail and focus on quality are right at the top of the company’s philosophy. The business operates nationally from its premises in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, supplying exclusively to retail showrooms.

Kesseler’s factory boasts the latest CNC routing machinery to produce a cabinet that is unique in the market place thanks to patented mortise and tenon jointing technology. The company is keen to offer its customers a high level of service and flexibility to meet various requirements.
When it came to upgrading existing five year-old edgebanding machine, quality and consistency was high on the list of requirements.

Operations director Ben Slater says: “Our existing machine was producing a good finish, but we wanted more consistency from the machine and to push the limit in terms of an absolutely perfect finish. A zero glue line finish on all our cabinets with no restriction in use of colours, as well as no restriction in tape thickness led us to Fen UK, based in Derby, and the edgebanding machine from Paul Ott GmbH.”

Ben Slater goes on to say: “During the extensive selection process we received excellent advice from Felix Ney at Fen UK and we noticed his very careful consideration of our product requirements, which lead us to the final technical specification of the machine. Delivery and installation of the machinery happened like clockwork during a busy period.”

Fen UK supplied the new, top-of-the-range edgebanding machine, including a Translift panel return system, to Kesseler UK Ltd.

The machine is manufactured by the well-established Austrian quality edgebanding machinery manufacturer, Paul Ott GmbH.

The machine installed, a heavy duty Strongedge machine, is capable of producing a zero glue line finish with all standard edging tapes available. Thanks to the LCM cleaning systems fitted, all panels leave the machine fully finished without the need for any manual cleaning intervention after edgebanding.

“The machine can produce panels with solid wood edges applied up to 20mm in thickness and coil materials right down to 0.3mm. Feeding speed is 20m/min, including corner-rounding passes. The machine is fully automatic in operation and even the tape is set automatically in its guide,” explains Ben.

“The Translift system is a panel return solution to deal with 100% of edgebanded panel sizes and is not limited to the normal 70-80% of panel sizes when compared to other belt and roller transfer systems.

“Our previous panel return fitted to our old edgebander was limited in the panel sizes it could feed back to the operator. Once we saw the Translift demonstrated, we quickly recognised the extra capability of the system. Now it really is a one man operation all of the time.” says Ben.

Kesseler commercial director, Scott Slater, says: “Now that we are able to produce an edge finish that is really leading in the industry, and with our successful patented mortise and tenon jointing technology, we have noticed a big increase in demand from our customers.

“We have new colours available from our MFC suppliers and can now deliver a fantastic level of kitchen furniture design to our customers.”

Scott concludes saying: “We believe you get a much better level of quality and service from a family-owned business. It certainly has been proven by dealing with Fen UK.”