From the organisers of the Natural Stone Show

 

 

 
Equipment

Johnsons Wellfield develop ‘robodrill’ cladding solution
, By Eric Bignell

Crosland Hill York stone suppliers Johnsons Wellfield Quarries have adapted one of their three robot arms into a ‘robodrill’ to drill holes in the 7,000 cladding panels they are producing for Glen Howells Architects’ new 450-seat concert hall of the University of Birmingham’s Department of Music.

They have made the ‘robodrill’ using a standard 13mm Makita percussion drill that has drilled more than 30,000 8mm holes into hard sandstone during the past three months and continues to drill up to 500 holes a day without human control.

The 750W Makita HP2010N has been coupled to a robotic arm controlled by a computer programmed with the CAD drilling pattern to make certain that 7,000 sandstone cladding panels are an exact fit on site.

The project calls for a variety of size panels, requiring alternative drilling patterns, which is why ‘robodrill’ has been brought into play.

Each panel carries a piece number to identify its location on the cladding installation plan.

Johnsons Wellfield are part of the Myers Group, which includes the Naylor Myers building materials supply network. Andrew Garwood of Naylor Myers explains the robodrill’s development: “Our client and our own engineering team worked out the drilling process and Chris Brace, our CAD design specialist, wrote the programme to deliver the correct drilling pattern.

“There are holes at different positions, different angles and different depths. We have three robotic machines and robodrill is actually the smallest unit we have available. We then worked out the ideal drilling speeds and the level of percussion we could use and the maximum weight that we could apply to the panels.

“We very quickly determined that the Makita HP2010N was the ideal tool for the job and went out and bought one off the shelf.

“Our engineers made up a holder to fix the drill to the robot swivel head and the electricians wired the drill motor controls through the computer so that the programme started the drill at the correct position and contact with the stone and stopped it as soon as the correct depth is reached. Other than loading the panels onto the machine there is no human involvement at all with the process.”