Scottish saw centre counts on Swabian sharpening expertise 2021-12-08

"The Saw Centre" trade shop and distribution centre is based in the Scottish city of Glasgow. While its roots go back to 1889, the company has now grown to 30 employees. "The Saw Centre" has been using Swabian sharpening technology made by VOLLMER for 20 years. In April 2021, the company put its new VOLLMER CHD 270 sharpening machine with an ND 250 loading system into operation. This enables operators to machine carbide-tipped circular saw blades with complex tooth geometries in a single set-up and run it around the clock without manual intervention.

The name says it all when it comes to "The Saw Centre" in Glasgow. The site has a total area of 20,000 square metres and the business primarily resharpens circular and band saw blades. Furthermore, the company makes solid carbide tools and distributes machinery for the wood processing and metalworking industries. "The Saw Centre" is family-owned now the third generation and is jointly managed by David Stevenson and Tony Galbraith.

Sharpening complex tooth geometries in a single set-up

"The evolution of saw blades for our primary industries of wood, metal cutting, construction and UPVC has moved on quite drastically in the last 20 years," says Tony Galbraith. "To service the needs of our customers and streamline our productivity, we needed to upgrade our machinery. This upgrade was the VOLLMER CHD 270 with an ND 250 loading system that arrived in April 2021."

Thanks to its patented dual grinding wheel concept, the CHD 270 machine made by Biberach-based sharpening specialist VOLLMER is able to fully machine carbide-tipped circular saw blades in a single set-up – without having to change the grinding wheel. This enables "The Saw Centre" to machine circular saws with a straight tooth geometry and side chamfers in a single work operation – previously, three work processes were required. In addition, the CHD 270 can also be used to sharpen saw blades with alternating flat and angled teeth in a single set-up. Manufacturers produce these types of circular saw blades with more complex tooth geometries in order to improve the performance and durability of saw blades. Such circular saws are used above all by companies that process aluminium and PVC plastics. Moreover, there is also an increasing demand for hollow ground saw blades with concave tooth geometries.

VOLLMER's technology achieves significant time savings

By using the new CHD 270 sharpening machine, "The Saw Centre" has halved the duration of the sharpening process for carbide-tipped circular saw blades from 40 to 20 minutes. The decisive factor for these time savings is the fact that it is no longer necessary to manually switch between two machines. "Additionally, with the variety of plunge saws on the market, we now can use the ND 250 loading system to stack blades that are under 180 millimetres," says Scott McQuillan, Factory Manager at "The Saw Centre". "We spent two to three hours of each day manually loading the portable saw blades and now with the facility of stacking up to 70 at a time, we are gaining more time each day. The processing time has gone from nine minutes to six minutes."

The combination of the CHD 270 and the ND 250 not only allows operators to sharpen carbide-tipped circular saw blades without manual intervention, but also to machine in an automated system that runs around the clock and at weekends. "The Saw Centre" also benefits from the CHD 270's advanced software, kinematics and power. In addition, the robust machine has an automatic testing and measuring system that minimises process errors. Moreover, VOLLMER has replaced the previous hydraulic oil system with a pneumatic system, which makes using the machine cleaner and safer.

"Our Scottish customer 'The Saw Centre' demonstrates not only how our machinery can optimise the machining of carbide-tipped circular saws, but also that Great Britain remains an important market for VOLLMER after Brexit," says Jürgen Hauger, CEO of the VOLLMER Group. "We founded VOLLMER UK over 40 years ago and now have over ten employees at our branch in Nottingham."