EBM GOES CNC

Edwards Building Maintenance has installed a Protek Unico CNC production router…

When you have a client base that serves the needs of businesses as diverse as local coffee shops and restaurants, and some of planet’s biggest retailers, its clear that your business is able to deliver “something” that has universal appeal. Swansea based Edwards Building Maintenance, EBM, does just that.

Whether you’re a well known internationally distributed furniture retailer or a supermarket, a university or cafe, the “vision” you’ll have for your enterprise is not something that’s available off-the-shelf. It’s rather the product of an extensively researched and formulated design exercise, and a conversation with someone who understands your aims. Enter EBM.

EBM’s work is everywhere the eye alights among the high-street businesses it works for. The company makes counters, partition walls, lighting, bespoke fixtures, unique surfaces and more. They all reflect the “brands” we experience and reinforce the reasons we return.

Managing massive brand-led fit-out and construction projects down to the tiniest of details is a home-grown skill that EBM can claim, so too is a command of craft-based joinery skills able to extract elaborate constructions from wood and other materials. EBM’s skilled joiners turn designers’ sparks of ideas into tangible realities no matter how demanding. Now thanks to an investment in a Protek Unico CNC production router supplied by BSGA Member Complete CNC Solutions, the EBM team has a tool that delivers even more from its skills.

The Protek Unico CNC is a state-of-the-art production routing system. The system cuts, carves and engraves practically any machinable metal, plastic or wood quickly, cleanly and to the highest standards of accuracy. It will deal with laminates and flexible materials too.

The Protek Unico CNC is able to perform high speed profiling and machining operations that leave a finished cut on the surface it’s working. It compensates automatically for surface and thickness variations and cuts to high orders of accuracy making for tight mitres and accurately mated surfaces.

The Unico CNC is able to offset its tool thicknesses too and so can inlay, with interference fit accuracy, one material into another so yielding the potential for inventive design and construction devoid of any variation that might be evident in a hand-cutting operation. It delivers a finish that needs little or no manual, post cutting intervention too.

The bed of the Protek Unico CNC is a blank canvas that securely holds work-pieces with a powerful, zoned vacuum system. The bed can be easily resurfaced and adapted to accommodate fabricated fixtures if needed. Despite the high volumes of cutting waste produced, operation of the Unico CNC is kept clean, even when machining 20mm thick MDF or ply, thanks to an integrated waste removal system that extracts cutting by-products to a waste containment vessel for recycling or disposal.

In the hands of a skilled joiner the Unico CNC can work minor miracles on the materials it deals with. Its features and facilities are easily learned and confidence in it soon grows as familiarity builds.

EBM has put its Unico CNC to immediate use and it is already a contributing member of the team. Training was delivered by Complete CNC Solutions installation specialists on a live production job and all agreed that the output was exemplary.

EBM looks forward to a long and productive relationship with its Unico CNC and it will get it. The unit is engineered to go the distance in the most demanding production environments and its over-engineered components point to a long service life.