Oundle School, Private School, Oundle

A Striebig vertical panel saw has won full marks for efficiency after being bought for use at one of the UK’s top private schools.

The Striebig Compact 4164, supplied with an optional scoring saw and a specialist panel grooving tool has replaced a panel table saw in the carpentry shop at Oundle School. Oundle is an historic independent co-education boarding and day school whose origins date back to 1556. It has 800 boarders, 300 day pupils, with another 250 in its junior school.

The school’s Building department maintains a variety of properties worth £185 million. These include 60 school buildings-the oldest of which is 450 years old – and nearly 40 staff properties. Martin Crump, Building & Maintenance Officer, said: “We were struggling with the table saw as it was not really adequate for our needs. It needed two men to cut up large panels and took up too much space in the workshop”.

Striebig Compact saves time and space

“The vertical panel saw saves us a great deal of time and effort as it’s now a one-man job to cut sheets, and although it’s twice as big as the table saw it takes up far less floor space.” Used daily to size a variety of sheet materials including plywood, MDF and block board, the scoring saw is used on veneered-faced material and Formica sheets.

The trenching attachment is used when working on items such as cupboard carcassing and wooden pigeon holes. This was previously done by hand on the workbench, using a router and a jig. The Compact is the entry-level model within the Striebig range with a cutting range of 3100mm x 1644mm and a cutting depth of 60mm. An automated cut cycle version, the Compact AV, is also available.

“It’s a very versatile saw that always gives a perfectly smooth and accurate cut, and we even use it to cut out apertures in the middle of a sheet of material,” said foreman carpenter Lee Palmer. “It has also improved our Health & Safety as it has halved the amount of manual handling needed while its extraction keeps the surrounding dust down to a minimum.”

The purchase was part of £50,000 investment in new machines made following the carpentry shop’s move into a new building. This has also included a mortiser, cross cut saw, pillar drill and an extraction system.

After reading about the popularity of the Swiss-made saws in the trade press, what clinched the decision to buy the Compact was the strong recommendation of a salesperson from another woodworking equipment supplier who said they could not get a better vertical panel saw than a Striebig.

“We now have a ruggedly-built and easy-to-use industrial saw that’s totally suitable for the type and extent of the work we are asked to do,” said Mr Crump.

The saw, and an Al-Ko single bag extraction unit, was supplied and installed by long-time Striebig agent, T.M. Machinery Sales.