A major two-phase installation of dust extraction equipment has taken place at Bradford shop and bank fitter Charles Castle Ltd as part of a £2m investment programme.
Dust extraction engineers Cades Ltd upgraded existing equipment when Castles moved from a traditional textile mill to a modern 70,000ft2 factory during Easter.
More recently Cades has extended the facilities to accommodate new production technology including a CNC router, rip saw, planer moulder, spindle moulder and a sliding table panel saw, in addition to more than 20 existing machines.
Before the installations, sanding of joinery items and bull nose edged panel based displays by craftsmen at more than 30 work stations was causing environmental problems because of high dust levels.
An existing rotary valve filter was transferred from the old factory to service finishing machinery and two high pressure vacuum fan sets were installed so any or all of the sanding stations could be used or switched off as needed.
A new CWF 2020 DX3+1 chain filter was installed to service the main shop floor, together with two low-noise Jørgen Hansen fansets at ground level to allow larger particles to drop into a collection hopper while taking fine dust to the filter bags for separation.
The recent system extension for the five new machines included the addition of two sections to bring total air flow capacity to 30,000cfm. Clipped joint ducting extends to around 500 linear metres throughout the factory.
