New iointing systems for large and small runs

ETVER-INCREASING demands from customers and a I/steady rise of production costs are typical challenges facing woodworkers today. How can the required quality be supplied and the production costs kept at a reasonable level for both small orders of a few hundred feet as well as for large runs of several thousand feet?

The quality of a workpiece machined in a moulder is primarily determined by the quality of the surface finish. To a large extent this is a function of the distance between the cutter marks of two knives following each other. The smaller the distance between these cutter marks, the less visible the marks are, resulting in a smooth, fine surface.

Conventional production can achieve short cutter mark spacing and a quality finish only at relatively slow feed speeds of 8 to 10 meters (25-35 ft.)/minute. Yet, larger runs can only be produced economically at higher feed speeds. For a quality finish in this case, you must use jointed tooling.

During production, both straight knife and profile jointers can be remotely controlled with the safety hood closed. The jointing stone advance adjustment is made automatically, increasing safety and eliminating intemrptions and operator errors. Converting from straight knife to profilejointer is unnecessary since both are built into the moulder.

There is less blunting of the knife tips than there used to be, further increasing the service life of the tooling.

The amount of time that can be saved by using jointed tooling depends on the size of the production run. If jointing is used and therefore the machine is run at a feed speed of 40 m (140 ft.)/min., compared to production with nonjointed tooling at a feed speed of 10 m (35 ft.)/min., the saving in terms of pure machine running time is at a ratio of 4: 1 In this case, the saving achieved producing a run of 200 linear meters (600 linear ft.) would be l5 minutes; for a run of 1,200 meters (3,600 ft.), the saving would be 90 minutes.

However, to calculate the actual real amount of time saved, you also must consider the time needed to prepare the tooling in the toolroom as well as setting up the moulder. There is a clear difference between the time required to prepare non-jointed versus jointed tooling and the setting time for repeated use of the same tooling. If existing tooling is used to produce a profile, the preparation time is considerably reduced as, obviously, there are ground knives and presetjointer cassettes available which can be used.

J0INTER

Jointing means to align all the tool cutting edges with ajointing stone when the tool is mounted on the moulder spindle and rotating at full npus. This brings all knives in the cutterblock to the same cutting circle where they are equally determining the cut and consequently the surface finish quality.

This way it is possible to achieve ideal mark spacing and thus a perfect finish, even at feed speeds of 40 or 60 m ( I 30200 ft.)/min. or more. The jointing operation can be repeated several times which means the knives can be "resharpened" during production, providing:

(l) Constant high quality of surface finish. Jointed tooling remains sharp for a much longer time, ensuring that the last piece produced is of the same quality as the first.

(2) Longer, unintemrpted production runs. Service life ofjointed tooling (how much it can produce before needing regrinding in the toolroom) is longer than that of non-jointed tooling. Also, small nicks on the knives, which occur during production, can be removed by jointing, so even large runs can usually be completed without intemrptions.

Technical innovation has brought forward entirely new systems which make jointing faster, easier and safer than it used to be. A cassette holding the joint stone allows it to be accurately profiled in the toolroom and brought to the same axial zero level as the tooling. This is done on a jointer presetting device which exactly simulates the situation in the moulder. The jointer cassette can now be easily and quickly fitted on the moulder, eliminating the complicated setting of the cutterblock to the jointing stone.

Generally it can be said that for profiles that are run repeatedly and the tooling is already available, even small runs of a few hundred meters offset the longer set-up time required for jointing with shorter machine running time. Every linear meter produced over and above this time makes jointing a time-winning factor.

It is an outdated view that jointing is only a sensible option for large runs with production times of more than a whole day. If only one order of 1,000 linear meters (3,500 ft.) or more is produced per day with jointed tooling, a saving of several hundred hours a year can be achieved.

Based on the size of incoming orders, any woodworker can calculate how much time it takes for a high-speed moulder with jointers to pay off. Even short runs of unique nonrepeating profiles on the same machine do not present a problem; they can be made in the same way as previously, at lower feed speeds without using the jointing system.

The latest technology provides woodworking companies with the flexibility to meet the demands for high quality and still keep tight control over production costs.

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