Onekaka Workshops
Christ Astill. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Onekaka Workshops
Furniture maker Chris Astill, of Onekaka Workshops, has purchased an automatic copy lathe capable of turning out multiple joinery components. In Chris’s case these will be legs for his lines of solid-timber chairs and tables.
Not only does the lathe make each piece quickly (around 40 seconds per leg once the blank is loaded), but each one is a perfect copy. Various patterns are cut out of plywood and inserted behind the machine, and the carriage advance system then hydraulically follows them.
Says Chris: “I used to get all my chair legs made on this machine when the previous owner had it. So when they decided to sell it, it made sense to acquire it and start producing our own legs. Because it’s the only copy lathe of its type in the whole top of the South Island, we will also be available to turn out orders for other joinery customers as well. It can handle timber sizes of anything up to 1.2m X 150mm.”
The Spanish-made Calpe M-1200-R lathe was previously owned by The Sellers Room kitchen manufacturers in Stoke, and Chris purchased it late last year. He brought the three-quarter-tonne machine over the Hill on a trailer, and neighbouring farmer Aaron Griffiths helped him unload it and move it into place in the workshop with his front-end loader.
Because three-phase power could not be economically installed at his workshop, Chris had to spend an extra $5,500 to get electrician Teri Goodall to install a Eurotech Booster, a big black box converter which ups the 240-volt supply into the 400-volt current needed to run the lathe.
Onekaka Workshops also specialises in producing kitchen and bathroom joinery, indeed any solid-timber furniture.
Gerard Hindmarsh
