Guyson Equipment Cleans and Maintains Planing and Woodcutting Tools

Guyson International, one of the UK's leading manufacturers of industrial finishing equipment, recently delivered a KS450 ultrasonic cleaning tank and a Formula 1200 benchtop bead blast cabinet to RHW (R H Wilson (Lakes) Ltd.) of Kirkby Stephen, a leading timber importer and supplier, for cleaning and maintaining their wood cutting and planing tools.

The problem was how best to clean 'helical planer blocks' to remove a build-up of pitch, sap, resin and other wood-based materials. These substances adhere to the cutting blades and plane body, affecting their efficiency, performance, and quality.

RHW's Managing Director Rodney Dalton was invited to Guyson's Skipton 'Component Finishing Centre', where they have a wide array of finishing equipment set up for customer trials and demonstrations, in order to find the best solution.

Currently, maintenance staff spends considerable amounts of time trying, with a small manual spray washer, to clean these planer blocks, but with limited success. Thus, they usually get left and when the residue hardens the job becomes even more difficult and takes longer.

As with most maintenance tasks, blade cleaning is easier when done regularly, before the accumulation becomes too thick or baked on by the heat. Regularly cleaning the planer block will also help extend the cutting life and improve performance. But the problem can be made worse when the wrong type of cleaning is used.

Harsh, mechanical cleaning by metal blades or wire brush can introduce thousands of minute scratches to the surface of the blocks, allowing ever more material to stick to the blade and make the situation worse, whilst less abrasive cleaning often involves hard manual labour, scrubbing for prolonged periods with nylon pads and common household cleaners. Or there is the use of more aggressive spray-on caustic solutions that may lead to corrosion of the blade surface.

Guyson recommended trying one of their industrial quality KS ultrasonic tanks. Safe and effective cleaning is achieved using ultrasonics, controlled heat, and a mildly alkaline detergent solution. The highly effective precision cleaning is performed without manual intervention, allowing staff to conduct other tasks while the cleaning is being performed. Within ten minutes, the helical planer blocks were removed from the demonstration unit and were in pristine condition with no signs of contamination. Mr Dalton was delighted and ordered a mid-sized KS450 ultrasonic tank there and then, stating "Now we can clean them every day and this problem will never occur again."

The KS ultrasonic tanks are available in a range of six standard sizes with capacities up to 248 litres, with larger sizes available upon request. KS tanks allow users to pre-set the exact time and temperature for cleaning, ensuring consistent quality from batch to batch. A simple membrane keypad controls all functions. An LCD panel displays the temperature and time set by the user, the elapsed time since the cleaning process began, and the status of the power supply, heater, and ultrasonics. All units operate in temperatures ranging from 20 to 80 degrees Centigrade, enabling the optimum temperature to be selected for a particular combination of component material, cleaning solution, and contaminant. Among the automatic safety devices are sonics that do not operate if the solution temperature exceeds 10°C above the set temperature, and low-level protection to prevent heater burn-out if the solution level drops.

Whilst in conversation with Guyson's Sales Manager in the demonstration room, the topic turned to how their other wood cutting and moulding tools are cleaned, as they produce skirting's, architrave, decking and bespoke mouldings, and a Guyson Formula 1200 benchtop bead blast cabinet was also ordered for general workshop reconditioning and metal brightening; as some tools are steel, so can oxidise. Guyson 'Honite glass beads' were included with the cabinet so the oxide layer can now be safely removed without damaging the tooling.

Guyson's Customer Service Department can arrange free 'try before you buy' ultrasonic cleaning or blast finishing trials on your wood cutting tools to prove the process and give recommendations on the most suitable equipment for your needs - phone 01756 799911 or email info@guyson.co.uk today.

Guyson International Limited
Snaygill Industrial Estate, Keighley Road,
SKIPTON, North Yorkshire, England BD23 2QR

Tel: +44 (0)1756 799911
email: info@guyson.co.uk

About Guyson
Guyson International Limited is a privately owned family company with a worldwide reputation for excellence in the design and manufacture of blast finishing, spray wash and ultrasonic cleaning equipment. Formed over eighty years ago, the company is registered to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 and its head office is located at Skipton, North Yorkshire, in the north of England. Guyson has four international subsidiary companies: Guyson Corporation of the USA, located in Saratoga Springs, New York State; Guyson SA, situated near Paris, France; Guyson Sdn Bhd in Penang, Malaysia; and Guyson CN, in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China.

This release was published on openPR.