Daniel Dew from Bacci, America joins in conversation with Apratim Ghoshal, editor-in-chief, Wood & Panel from the floors of IWF Atlanta.
Congratulations on winning the Challenger’s Award. You have won this award for the third time right?”
Yes, this is our third Challenger’s Award. This time we have won it for T4MO CNC, dedicated to the woodworking industry. For the wood industry, this is the first major exposure to the furniture industry.
Tell us more about this machine and the functionality and for which industry this machine is normally used?
The machine is developed in Italy for the Italian chair market- amongst the furniture and chairs. But you see it largely in the chair industry because of the multiple contours of the parts. What’s different about this is that if you can go to a copy lead where you have a template and you’re relying on the pressure for the cutters to follow the original, this machine uses a 3D model format. So, if you just have a drawing, and you just consider the turning one step, it’s just following the surface of the 3D model using CNC technology. It is really a three axis CNC machine, you have a rotation so you can control your speed and position. You have the in and out movement of the bell cutters and the transverse x-axis as it goes from right to left.
How popular is this machine in the North American market?
This is really the first big introduction to the furniture industry so it’s still fairly new here. We’ve got a couple of them sold that was running but it’s still a fairly new thing. It’s just much more broadly accepted in the Italian chair market.
Besides this machine, which are the new products you are exhibiting in IWF this time?
We have the Bacci icon, which takes some of the technology developed here as far as turning, but it also has additional reducers, it has gauge tools so that you want to get into more details in your spindles and your turning while we get into more details. And it’s built on a large gantry style machine where the front of the machine does the reduction in the turning and there’s a five-axis machine for your fluting and any other machining that you want to do. In addition we have two table setups, so when you’re chucked up in the lane, you can follow the back side where the router’s at and doing some machining. But we can also have a separate table where you can take it out of the latch and put it into clamps if you want to do the end work.
Lastly, how successful is IWF for you this time?”
Well, we think as far as introducing the idea of the machine, it’s been very successful. Obviously, winning the Challenger’s Award has been really helpful as far as bringing exposure to bring people here. But yeah, I think we’re thrilled with it, you know.
