The installation of new membrane presses and a high-speed trimming line was the catalyst which led a Northern Ireland mouldings and furniture component manufacturer to invest in an up-to-date gluing system.
Cookstown-based Trade Mouldings bought a £500,000 Giardina fully-automatic and robotic gluing line during the summer after the old system was proving a bottleneck with new capacity requirements.
The company says it is having to constantly change and improve its technology to keep pace with demand, both in terms of volume and an increased range of products, which includes PVC formed kitchen and cabinet doors and wrapped furniture components such as mouldings, plinths and accessories.
The previous gluing system involved hand spraying the edges of stacked doors and other flat panel components on a large, rotating, purpose-built carousel before they were individually transported into an automated spray tunnel for surface spraying.
Now, with the GMD-supplied Giardina system, the pre-cleaned MDF panels are stacked onto motorised roller conveyors and moved automatically into the edge spraying rooms, where stack sizes are measured by laser to tell a CNC robot control where to spray the edges.
Panels are moved to roller convey or holding stations for press load optimisation. They then move onto stainless steel belts to enter the second pressurised spray room for automatic reciprocating spraying of the top surface and profiles.
Optimised panels then pass into a jetted-air drying tunnel with high efficiency jet cone system and are ready for the press lay-up tables.
