Your Advantages when purchasing a used Woodworking Machine
Especially when a company is intending to get started in CNC-machining on a tight budget, an inexpensive used woodworking machine can keep the investment low. Often the machines will continue to perform their reliable service for several years.
In particular, an inspection on site documents the operational readiness of the machine.
When buying a used veneer press, pay attention to the tightness of the pressure cylinders, the evenness of the press plates, their intactness (no scratches, etc.) and check the functioning of the heating plates.
Company liquidations and changes in strategy and product make a wide range of presses from many suppliers available on this central platform. These machines sometimes have a low number of operating hours in relation to the age of the machine and therefore do not entail any loss in production quality.
Do you need a used edge banding machine quickly? If available on the used machine market, the delivery time is considerably shorter compared to a new machine.
Whether planing machines in general, jointers and thicknessing machines, sliding table saws or used briquette presses: the range of used woodworking machines is diverse and widely spread!
A machine seeker will find an extraction system for wood as well as a sawmill machine, a planer, a four-sided planer or a hobby carpenter a band saw. A carpenter prefers the type ALTENDORF F 45 for sliding table saws, his carpenter colleague a MARTIN T 60 or another manufacturer like PANHANS, SCM or FELDER.
The surface determines the appearance of a piece of furniture, wide belt sanding machines for handicraft and industry, spraying machines or a brushing machine wood provide an appropriate finish, a vacuum lifter protects the manufactured surface - all possible with used woodworking machines.
Are you looking for used woodworking machines?
You've come to the right place - take a look!
Edge banding machines:
1932: the year of birth of chipboard. Max Himmelheber from Karlsruhe receives a patent that describes the production of a "wood-like product and a process for its manufacture". Basically a pioneering product of ecological sustainability, as with chipboard more than the maximum 40 % wood mass of a tree that could be used up to that time could be used now! (Source: www.bundesverband-patentanwaelte.de/patente/der-weltweite-siegeszug-der-spanplatte/)
After World War II, industrial production began and with it the mass availability of flat materials for furniture construction.
While veneers were already known to give the surfaces a high-quality and decorative design, there was no machine coating for the narrow edges.
Initially, solid wood or veneer edge bands were applied manually, but soon there was an increasing desire to automate this work.
Almost at the same time, Messrs Hornberger in the heart of the southwest German furniture industry (1962) and Klessmann in the east Westphalian furniture centre developed the first edge
banding machines; followed by the foundation of the companies HOMAG and IMA, which still exist successfully on the market today and are regarded as global brands.
Gradually, further developments of new adhesives and a diversification of edge banding materials as well as coating materials ensured corresponding unit developments for equipping
edge banding machines and completing the processing.
Basically, panel materials up to a thickness of 40 mm can be processed, some manufacturers equip their machines as standard up to 60 mm, optionally up to 80 mm. Machines for processing
panel materials up to 100 mm thick are rarely found as special designs.
Mainly, 3 production steps describe the gluing of edge banding materials:
* (Pre-)formatting / joining
* Edging
* Post-processing: this determines the degree of automated processing and, due to the resulting increase in the number of units, the machine length
(Pre-)Formatting / Joining
Joining (usually carbide or diamond tipped milling heads combined in parallel or counter run) is used to finish the edge produced on saws in order to produce a tear-free visible edge.
With the development of PUR adhesive systems in particular, joints can be made that are
- almost invisible
- waterproof
- temperature-resistant up to approx. 150° C.
Alternative developments such as laser edges (a pre-coated functional layer is melted on with laser light or hot air) or PUR adhesive strips (FELDER) are also available on the market.
If a profile (e.g. barrel profile) is milled instead of a vertical, straight edge, this is referred to as softforming with corresponding adaptation of gluing (gluing to the edge band material instead of gluing to the carrier board) and pressure zone (profile pressure zone).
Edging
There is a basic distinction between:
* Reel material 0.2 - 3 mm made of melamine, PVC, ABS, real wood veneers
* strip material usually up to a thickness of 25 mm made of solid wood, thick veneers, aluminium (max. 2 mm thickness), hard plastics, laminate, etc.
After applying the adhesive layer onto the support or edge band material, the edge and panel are "married" in a pressure zone.
Multiple edge magazines hold different edges for a "batch size 1" and are fed automatically.
A special design are machines for so-called lightweight panels, which additionally glue a so-called support edge into the honeycomb centre layer in order to create a solid basis for the actual decorative edge.
Overhangs at the top, bottom, front and back are processed flush downstream.
Post-processing
A typical sequence of finishing is:
- Edge trimming for flush cutting of the front and rear edge overhang
- Execution with 1 or 2 cross-cut saws
- Flush milling to remove the upper and lower overhang
- Radius milling for profiling the longitudinal edge with a radius of 1.2 or 3 mm,
- R5 is often found at solid edges
- Corner rounding or contour milling
When gluing the 3rd or 4th edge, the overhang is rounded according to the radius produced on edge 1 and 2.
- Profile scraper for fine scraping the milled radius to remove "chatter marks"
- Flat scraper for finishing the surface overhang or glue joint
- Buffing unit for removing white fracture and polishing the longitudinal profiling
Radius milling units, corner rounding units as well as profile scraper units are also equipped with different, interchangeable radius tools in order to consistently realise "batch size 1"
production in post-processing.
Optionally, grooving units and/or sanding units for sanding the straight edge and/or the profiles (for veneer edges) can further increase the processing efficiency, provided that the
machine length allows this.
The Austrian company OTT has developed a special structure brushing unit to give the haptically high-quality structure boards a finish, as it is impossible to process this surface
with a flat scraper.
Due to „batch size 1“ production also double-sided edge banders which deliver high performance with low size variance, become rarely.
Feed speeds vary from approx. 10 m/min (in the craft sector) to 25 m/min, high-performance lines can also achieve approx. 80 m/min.
Attached return systems enlarge the space requirement of an edge banding machine, but allow gentle handling of the panel materials (especially when vacuum systems are used) and
significantly reduce personnel costs.
Special designs of edge banding machines in thru feed are e.g. moulded edge banding machines for processing shaped edges.
CNC working center
The CNC working center is state-of-the-art as a central production technology in modern woodworking and complements the production steps "cutting to size" with panel saws and "edge banding" with corresponding machines.
Whereas in the past production was carried out in several steps using
(top) milling machines and drilling machines, these tasks are nowadays bundled and carried out "in one set-up" by computer-controlled CNC machines. Milling and drilling are sometimes supplemented by edge banding, especially on large molded parts such as office desks. The use of these CNC machines increases flexibility as well as precision in the production of workpieces in furniture manufacturing, whether for wood-based materials, wood-like materials, plastics or solid wood parts.
The basic equipment of CNC machining centers usually includes a multi-spindle drilling head, a milling spindle unit - also known as the main spindle - and an automatic tool changing system for milling tools.
The former standard with SK30 holders changed at the beginning of the 2000s to today's HSK63F. A distinction is made between 3-, 4- and 5-axis systems - whereby 6 or more NC axes can be installed in a machine.
Nowadays, investment in 5-axis CNC technology is already prioritized in the new machine sector, as the use of angle units is reduced or machining steps such as the production of Clamex joints or miter cuts are generally made possible. Especially in frame and chair production, but also in staircase construction, 5-axis machining was favored from the very beginning.
So-called nesting machines are attracting increasing customer interest and sometimes replace the panel saw used upstream in production, because a complete wood-based panel, usually in half format, is placed on a closed, full-surface table. The workpieces are then "nested" in the panel in a way that optimizes waste, milled out and provided with the appropriate holes and milled holes. "2 in 1" can provide a space-saving, cost-effective and efficient solution.
Well-known manufacturers of CNC processing centers in the wood industry include HOMAG, IMA, MAKA, MKM, Reichenbacher from Germany or BIESSE, Masterwood, PADE, or SCM / Morbidelli from Italy - listing not exhaustive.
Unlike in the metal industry with its large quantities, the requirement in the wood industry from the beginning was to be able to react flexibly and variably to small quantities or even "batch size 1" efficiently. The original programming at ISO level has accordingly been replaced since the mid-1980s by dialog-oriented, graphic-supported programming, which includes more and more intuitive operating elements and has been expanded peau a peau in the programming options. The programming of the machines is carried out accordingly via WOP interfaces (Workshop-Oriented Programming) on or via automated CAM interfaces from the industry programs directly to the machine.
The WOP interfaces are usually developed by the machine manufacturers themselves, such as WOOD-WOP (HOMAG) or IMA-WOP. Machine-independent software solutions that can control different makes are certainly advantageous; especially when replacing a CNC woodworking machine or when using several NC machines, it is then no longer necessary to familiarize oneself with the programming logic of a new software or to master different systems. NC-HOPS from the company NC-Direct is such a widely used alternative.
Essential decision criteria when buying a CNC machining center - used or new - can be:
- Machining size X,Y,Z
- Table configuration (closed table surface, movable supports)
- Clamping systems (vacuum system, mechanical or in combination)
- Drilling head configuration (number of vertical, horizontal drilling spindles, grooving unit 0-90 degrees)
- Milling spindle (3-,4-, 5-axis, interpolation, C-axis, tool change possibility, additional interface for aggregates like compressed air)
- Tool changer (number of change places, moving in X and/or Y, center distance of the tool places = max. tool D, max. weight of the tool as single tool or in sum in the changer)
- User interface (How do I program "my" workpiece comfortably, quickly and reliably?)
- Possibilities of remote maintenance or teleservice
Compressed air equipment
You can't do without compressed air in a woodworking processing company!
Machines need this energy source to move machine components, in the paint shop compressed air is used to atomize paint materials in the Airmix system.
The CNC machine requires compressed air to clamp the workpieces or to clean the HSK63F interface for a precisely fitting and smooth-running tool in the milling spindle.
Too little attention is often paid to compressed air, even though it is probably the most expensive energy source in operation! Leaks in the compressed air system or compressors that are poorly designed to meet the actual requirements - screw and/or piston compressors are available - are real energy guzzlers and are an insidious drain on the cost budget.
