New cutting machine Merford Acoustic Materials

Previously Merford Acoustic Materials mainly had a wholesale function. ‘We bought sound insulation and sound absorption boards from our suppliers and delivered them from stock to companies and consumers', outlines Operations Manager Peter Fernig. But demand changed. Customers needed specific sizes instead of whole boards. Therefore, we bought a water cutting machine with which we can cut any size and part in 2D from any material'. It turned out to be a good move, as Merford Acoustic Materials now is a specialist in made-to-measure parts. An extra machine was a logical step. ‘In order to be able to serve the customers even better.’

Mass versus foam

Yet another question immediately arose: 'Are we going to put down a second watercutter or are we going for a machine with additional possibilities?' Peter describes the dilemma. ‘The advantage of a water cutter is that it can go through any material. Even through steel!’ But the cutter also has a disadvantage: with 10 to 15 cm the height is very limited. 'So you can't stack plates.' In order to be able to make a well-considered choice, an inventory was made of which types of plates are cut the most. Roughly speaking, Merford distinguishes two categories: mass sheets such as bitumen and plaster, and foam sheets. The mass sheeting must always be cut with a water cutter, but the foam sheets can also be sawn with a band saw. ‘And it turned out that we cut a lot of sheet plates from foam boards. So a band saw for the foam plates was the best option!’

Lightning fast

After thorough research in the market and discussions with suppliers, Fecken-Kirfel's fully automatic vertical band saw proved to be the best solution. ‘It can process 2.40 m x 2.00 m boards. We can cut size particles out of them very efficiently'. The big advantage of the band saw is that it can cut material up to a thickness of 1300 mm. By stacking, it is therefore possible to cut several sheets at the same time. ‘All we have to do is putting the sheets in, setting up the machine and it starts working at seventy metres per minute,' says Peter proudly. ‘He saws fully automatically and 'spits out' the particles at the back with a cutting tolerance of up to plus or minus 2 mm. Our cutting capacity increases by more than 100%! Because the machine also cuts large volumes quickly and efficiently, the customer has the parts ordered even earlier and often loses less in production costs...'

Faceted and beveled edges

The new CNC cutting machine is the result of listening carefully to the market. What exactly does the customer need? That's what we at Merford like to respond to. That's why we recently purchased another new machine. With this machine we can also cut facet and bevel edges on our products. Until the summer we will do everything we can to get to know the machines well so that from September we will be ready to run full production.