Dustraction deals with dust at Sam Mouldings

Woodwaste extraction system upgrade for SAM Mouldings

About SAM Mouldings and its manufacturing scale

SAM Mouldings of County Antrim in Northern Ireland has recently installed dust extraction equipment supplied by Dustraction.

SAM Mouldings is responsible for the sustainable manufacture and delivery of a wide range of the finest quality architectural mouldings right across the UK and beyond. The company is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of interior and exterior MDF architectural mouldings, including skirting and architrave, cladding, fascia and soffits.

Founded by Sam and Julienne McCrea in 1990 (the same year in which this magazine was first published), SAM remains a family-run business to this day. For over 30 years, SAM has been trusted by the construction and home improvement industries to manufacture quality MDF mouldings that have been fitted into homes, hotels, offices and other commercial buildings across the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Europe and as far afield as the US.

With factories and offices in England and Northern Ireland and continued investment into the company’s product quality, range, availability and delivery, SAM is well placed to provide a market leading, consistent and reliable service package through its personable, trusted and professional staff team.

Why SAM Mouldings needed to upgrade its woodwaste extraction system

It is therefore no surprise that when the need was identified to upgrade its existing dust extraction system, the company turned to another well-established and well-respected name in the world of woodwaste and dust extraction – Leicester-based Dustraction. The immediate need was for an upgrade to SAM Mouldings woodwaste extraction system.

High-capacity external cyclo-filter solution and system design

In order to enhance the existing extraction system, Dustraction’s Steve Matuska was called upon to install a new external cyclo-filter, which would serve Weinig moulders, beam saws and various other machines, such as an X-cut saws, double-end tenoners and CNC routers. The specification was also to allow for the future addition of extra moulding and sawing capacity.

The total air volume to be handled by the enhanced systems was to be almost 76,000m3 /hr plus 45% future spare capacity in the Cyclofilter. The solution which Dustraction came up with was the Dustrax 4X9 Cyclo filter, which would be located externally in the yard. The cyclonic filter body would be manufactured from 3mm thick mild steel sheet. Mounted within the body would be a perforated cylindrical thimble housing the filter sleeves, which would be manufactured from 450 gm/m² polyester felt. Once fitted, the waste was to be tangentially blown into the filter chamber and 95 per cent of the material cyclonically separated before reaching the filter media. Air passes through the filter element, leaving the remaining 5 per cent of the particulate to cake on the outside of the filter media.

At a pre-set pressure drop across the filter media, a short burst of compressed air is released down the inside of the filter sleeve in the opposite direction to the air flow to dislodge the accumulated dust cake. In a typical reverse jet cleaning cycle, rapid acting diaphragm valves are triggered by solenoid operated pilot valves at intervals in a continuous sequence by an electronic controller. By employing circular sleeves, the tendency to bridge is reduced and the amount of sleeve deformation is restricted to give a good cake release without significant cloth movement.

The filter is suitable for operating on a continuous basis, as there are very few moving parts and, for this reason, maintenance is minimised. The life of the filter sleeves would be extended, because they only come into contact with five per cent of the waste and that five per cent is only the fine dust constituent. The filter was to be mounted on a flat base with the waste being extracted tangentially. The waste from the Cyclo filter would be extracted from the base of the unit and conveyed to the existing Biomass bunker, or diverted to the existing externally mounted trailers via two new pneumatic twoway valves.

ATEX safety, regulatory compliance and installation delivery

Incorporated as standard within the filter chamber would be explosion bursting membranes to conform to ATEX and UKCA legislation. As required by the current DSEAR regulations, Dustraction was to include the supply of two 750mm diameter and one 600mm diameter ATEX non-return valve, including heavy gauge welded ducting between the filter and the valves. These valves would be located 4m from the filter air inlet to contain any potential explosion, which may occur within the filter, hence preventing it from being transmitted along the ductwork back into the building.

All the work was carried out by Dustraction in one unbroken visit in order to minimise downtime for SAM Mouldings. All the equipment to be supplied was to comply with the COSHH requirements of the Health & Safety Executive. The work undertaken by Dustraction included carrying out the commissioning on completion of the installation and supplying the relevant data as stipulated under Regulation 9 in the HSE COSHH documentation.

Now that the new woodwaste extraction is up and running, what does SAM Mouldings’ technical director, Mark Kirkpatrick, who handles the day-to-day running of both of the company’s sites, reckon to the new system. How well was the installation undertaken by Dustraction and what made SAM Mouldings choose Dustraction in the first place ‘We have been dealing with Steve Matuska and his partners, Chris Fowle and Steve Henson since 1995 and saw no reason to go to anyone else,’ says technical director, Mark Kirkpatrick. ‘Adding to our decision to return to this trusted supplier was the
fact that they were the only company which could handle the high volumes of dust which we create on a daily basis – typically 6-8m3/hr.

‘Altogether the whole operation took three months to complete, taking place over October, November and December 2021. ‘The process would have been quicker had it not been for problems that were still being experienced with the supply of sheet metal in the wake of the Covid pandemic,’ says Mr Kirkpatrick. ‘In spite of this, the whole system was up and running by January 2022 and we have not experienced any problems with it throughout the two years that it has now been fully operational,’ concludes Mr Kirkpatrick.

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