The Royal National Theatre in London has bought a SAOM CNC machining centre and Elcon vertical panel saw for the production of stage sets.
Nottingham-based Daltons supplied the units to help the theatre bring set construction in-house.
“A new set must be created from scratch for every show, the bulk of which is constructed from wood,” said Paul Evans, the theatre’s head of scenic construction and armoury. “We were contracting all this work out, often leaving us in difficult situations when opening night deadlines for shows were not being met.”
The Italian-made SAOM T30-2MCU+UF CNC 3-axis machine was specially built to fit the limited space available to Mr Evans.
The Elcon 215DSXE vertical panel saw included advanced panel clamping and a maximum panel capacity of 5.3×2.15m.
“With scene construction we use a lot of oversized and odd sized sheet material,” added Mr Evans. “I really don’t know how we managed without.”
