Murray & Murray is recognised as one of the leading Scottish designers and manufacturers of high quality handmade bespoke kitchens and interiors with a reputation for excellent workmanship and customer service. The design portfolio is diverse covering all styles from period country houses to contemporary city apartments and everything in between. To enhance this reputation, the company completed the purchase of a Kündig Brilliant-2 1350 REd-L sander at W16.
Murray & Murray workshop manager, Adam Cleghorn, beside the company’s new Kündig Brilliant-2 1350 REd-L sander
“The new sander was needed to improve the quality of the finish of our product and to speed up production,” workshop manager, Adam Cleghorn, told Furntiure & Joinery Production. “We already had a wide-belt sander, but it was about 15 years old and we greatly needed to improve the quality of finish that we were achieving.
“I chose a Kündig sander because everybody told me that they were the best,” Adam continued. “I will be 40 next year and have been doing this since I was 15: and when I spoke to the reps and engineers, they all said that Kündig was the best. I had also seen the advert in trade magazines over the years, and the company always seemed to be getting good write-ups.
“We did get another company in to quote, but they could not understand what we wanted to achieve. In a 15 minute conversation with Carl O’Meara of Kündig, he got exactly what we wanted – he understood completely what we needed to do.”
Adam said that the machine had basically been sold on the phone, but the company did want to see the machine in action before making a final decision. Murray & Murray were purchasing the machine that was on display at W16 and paid a deposit before the show, on the understanding that if demonstrations at the show did not meet with their approval they would not buy it.
“Carl provided veneered boards for us at the show which we sanded – the boards were similar to those which we use, so we could see the quality of the sander without having to carry boards around ourselves. He put one board through the sander and it was sold! You could see the quality straight away from that one compared to what we were achieving in the workshop.”
Adam emphasised that the quality that is achieved by the sander is “way beyond expectations.”
He continued, “We were running proper jobs straight away, we had so much confidence in it. The first week we put over 1000m of material through the sander. Both Carl and the engineer who installed it said it would be wise to try a couple of test panels first, but we saw the quality when the engineer installed it and felt test pieces were unnecessary even with lacquers and veneers. I was sanding lacquered panels today: you can sand off a layer of lacquer, it is that accurate, without going into the wood.”
The Kündig sander is used across the full range of Murray & Murray products.
These images show the refined nature of Murray & Murray’s work
Adam has seen significant time savings since installing the Kündig sander. “Work that took the boys four to five days to sand by hand, can be done on the machine in four hours, saving us 5500 hours a year.” And the reduction in hand sanding to just the edges of panels has improved health and safety, reports Adam, as the “boys on the benches” are not exposed to so much dust.
“We are getting the sandpaper for the machine off Carl as well: the quality of the sandpaper he supplies is exceptional and is lasting way beyond what was being achieved on the previous machine.”
Adam selected a machine with oblique sanding, and has it permanently set up with the oblique sanding option as “it totally gets rid of the marks”. Where all sanding heads are in line with the direction of travel of the workpiece, tiny flaws that develop over time on the abrasive belts can be transferred to the workpiece. In oblique sanding one head, often the last one, is set at a slight angle to the direction of travel: marks are not transferred to the workpiece, a definite asset when expensive materials are being processed.
When asked if he would recommend Kündig, Adam replied: “Certainly, without a doubt. I wouldn’t even hesitate. My only regret is that I did not buy one of these years ago: I cannot believe how good this machine is.”
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