Ply Cutting
Plywood comes in many different guises. The main types we cut are listed below
Birch ply. This makes up about 80% of all the ply we cut. It is a light coloured ply with little or no knots. Comes in various quality grades. We mainly use BB/CP grade. Commonly used in furniture and when you need better quality than Far eastern Ply.
Standard Far Eastern Hardwood ply. The most common type seen in DIY stores. Quality not great but OK for general applications.
Wisa Spruce Ply – A quality softwood ply. Has a knotty surface, not great for damp environment but OK for general use … nice laminated edge cut. Similar price to Far Eastern.
Marine Ply. Looks similar to Far Eastern Ply but has little or no voids in the laminates and uses better wood and glue grades. The most expensive standard plywood.
Laminated Plys. Birch ply with various plastic surface laminates can be also cut an example of this is Wisa Multiwall a polypropylene faced ply that comes in different colours..
Standard sheet size is 84 feet but we can also get 410 and 5*10 in some of the thickness listed below:
Ply standard thickness in 8*4 (not all types) 4mm, 6mm, 9mm,12mm, 15mm, 18mm, 24mm, 25mm
We can Cut, rebate drill, round-over/chamfer and pocket Ply into any shape/part you need.
MDF Cutting MDF comes in 5 main types
Standard MDF – (We use Medit MDF – a European made MDF of better quality than than Far Eastern imports. 90% of the MDF we cut is this type.
MR MDF: (Moisture Resistant MDF) This green coloured MDF in not as effected by damp and water as the standard but still needs to be painted or sealed.
FR MDF: (Fire Resistant MDF) This red coloured MDF is used mainly in the shop fitting and events sectors. It is very abrasive to cutters so we use polycrystalline diamond cutters for this material which adds a small premium to the cutting costs.
Medite Tricoya MDF: Only introduced in 2012 this fully waterproof MDF can be used in any damp or wet situations WITHOUT any painting or sealing. This however comes at a premium cost of around £100 per sheet in 18mm
Laminated MDF.: Real wood laminates and melamine faced MDF can also be cut.
Standard sheet size is 84 feet but we can also get 410 and 5*10 in some of the thickness listed below:
MDF standard thickness in 8*4 (not all types) 4mm, 6mm, 9mm,12mm, 15mm, 18mm, 24mm, 30mm
Solid Wood Cutting
Very often we are asked to make certain components out of solid wood be it soft wood like pine or a hardwood like Oak or Walnut. We can source the material and cut the parts for you. With wood your are limited to the max width of a plank so you may want to use staved block board such as solid wood worktops. We have often cut worktops for kitchens (sink/tap holes) drainage flutes and flutes for iron pan bars etc. We have also carried out 3D bass relief work in solid wood for display pieces and mould design. If you can think it we can cut it. 50mm is the max thickness of solid wood we can cut through.
Soft Metals Cutting
99% of the soft metal we are asked to process is Sheet or Plate Aluminium. Cutting metals requires a coolant to be sprayed onto the cutter during machining along with more stringent swarf control methods. For this reason cutting and milling aluminium will cost more to process than for example Ply or MDF. The main business sectors we cut parts for in aluminium are the Sinage industry and also the engineering industry.
We also cut Composite materials such a Dibond and Honeycomb Aluminium. These applications require special cutters and experience. We have processed both these and other composite materials for sectors such as Motorcar engineering and the signage industry.
Plastics Cutting
Sheet Plastics come in many different types below is a few of the ones we commonly cut.
Acrylics (Perspex); Comes in many different colours and thickness’s. This is the most common plastic material we are asked to cut, in any thickness up to 20mm. The main business sectors for this are for display and singe. CNC routing give a frosted edge to the cut part so if you need a polished edge Laser cutting may be a better option, though in most cases CNC routing is sufficient. Polycarbonate is has very similar cutting properties to acrylic.
HIP (High impact plastics) ; Used in many applications from protective covers to pig feeders. We have experience in cutting HIP for many applications.
Nylon – Nylon is a hard durable plastic and we have used it to produce engineering parts for many projects.
Others – The are a number of other plastics we have cut and nearly all sheet plastics can be successfully cut, milled and drilled on our CNC machine
Plastics come in many sheet sizes and the largest we can accommodate are the full size sheets at 3*2m
Foam Cutting
Only certain types of foam can be cut on a CNC router. These are termed closed cell or Plastazote Foam (Typically called flight cased foam). The main application for this is for protective trays for tooling and parts. We can manage your project from start to finish.