A Sussex furniture manufacturer’s decision to move into batch work for the hotel and leisure industry has led it to invest in a Masterwood Winner 2.45S panel CNC machining centre.

Manborne, which makes reproduction, antique replica and contemporary furniture, needed to speed up production while remaining wedded to its crafts-based approach.

The Winner does all basic panel work, including boring and routing, previously done by various traditional machines. Its ability to perform multiple tasks saves time and is allowing Manborne to take on additional work.

Wood machinist Sebastian Mansfield-Osborne, whose father is co-owner of Manborne, said: ‘It’s relatively simple to get to grips with the program as it’s very user-friendly and the machine is great at cutting out shapes, such as circular or oval tops for coffee or dining tables, which are hard to set out manually.’

It is also used to shape draw fronts, route out recesses in the tops of panels for inlays and even fluting on columns. All Manborne’s craftsmen have access to the machine to produce individual components.

The Winner 2.45S is a three-axis cantilever machine with a 10.5hp router including a four-post automatic tool changer and the option of an eight- or 14-post carousel tool changer.

Manborne chose the 14-post changer as an extra, plus a larger vacuum pump to hold large numbers of smaller items down while being machined.