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Four worktops per minute with more than 200 possible design and colour variants: Bürkle is currently assembling a complex PUR Coating and Laminating Line including a robot loading and stacking system for the worktop manufacturer Bushboard. Bushboard Ltd., located in Central England is one of the biggest manufacturer of kitchen worktops and wall panels for bathrooms and wet rooms in the United Kingdom. And the company is growing. The current product portfolio comprises six lines with more than 200 different design and colour variants. With tendency to rise. More than 2.500 specially trained service technicians are engaged nationwide to process boards with new constructions and refurbishments. Also in this field Bushboard plans further growth. In this growth story Robert Bürkle GmbH is the partner of Bushboard. Recently Robert Bürkle GmbH, located in Freudenstadt has built a new laminating line for PUR surfaces.
“By the extensive opportunities of an in-house innovation centre we are able to test different large-scale material and glue combinations. Doing so, we designed a line exactly matching customer´s needs", Olaf Rohrbeck, Sales Chief Executive of Robert Bürkle GmbH, stresses the high engineering expertise of Bürkle. On the new Bürkle Line Bushboard produces all kinds of individual kitchen worktops with HPL and CPL top layers as well as solid surface materials.
Today the company specialises in the creation of ‘sensational surfaces’ in a broad variety of engineered worksurfaces, splashbacks, upstands and panelling components, in laminates, solid surface and quartz. In 2016 Bushboard was aquired by Wilsonart Global to form part of the Wilsonart group of brands.
Furthermore “shower panels” for bathrooms and showers are produced. For both applications a water-resistant bonding is indispensable. Thus, the English company has converted from PVAc glue to PUR hot melts. As substrates Bushboard uses chipboards, MDF, HDF and polyurethane boards with a bulk density of 550 up to 1.000 kg/m³. The range of the laminating material is from 0,3 up to 5 mm thickness. Another part of the specification was an enormous and steadily growing variety of decors which are partially used in very small batches. This range of variation in density, dimensions and laminating material in combination with the required cycle of 4 boards per minute was a particular challenge for the Engineering Team of Bürkle.
Continue to grow with the line
In the meantime the solution convinced. The laminating line and the line for provision, handling and transfer of the laminating material are arranged side by side in decoupled design. An industry robot takes over the loading of the substrates weighing up to 100 kg.
The portal unit which is arranged in parallel ensures take-up and separation of the cut to size surface material (decorative laminates or solid surface composite boards) as well as cleaning, transfer and high-precision positioning on the substrate in front of the press calender. The laminating line includes a turning device which automatically turns single-sided laminated work pieces and makes them available for a possibly lamination of the other side.
“Additionally, the line is equipped with an automatic laminate separating and feeding system as well as a brushing unit especially developed for laminates, which grants an optimal cleaning result even in case of cupped laminates”, describes Axel Mayer, responsible Project Manager at Bürkle, further intricacies of the PUR Line. At the end of the line another robot stacks four worktops per minute. From an economic point of view even the lot size 1 could be produced.
Bürkle disposes of the competence to design, plan, construct and supply complex laminating lines. Thanks to such lines Bushboard is able to grow and to design English kitchens and bathrooms even more decorative.
