D Zambelis, the Essex company that represents Achilli in the UK, says the Achilli MBS-L TS introduced at the Natural Stone Show in ExCeL London was its star of the Show.
Stella Zambelis and her husband Dimitri, directors of Essex machinery, tool and consumables suppliers D Zambelis, had been trying to persuade their Italian principals at Achilli to adapt a small saw for the UK market for a year. By the time the Stone Show opened at ExCeL on 30 April the new version of the saw – the MBS-L TS – was ready. None had been ordered, but Stella persuaded Achilli to bring one to London for the exhibition anyway. It was a good move.
The first MBS-L TS was sold (to another exhibitor) while the stands were still being built the day before the show opened. Stella asked for a deposit but the next day the full amount – £25,500 – had been transferred to the Zambelis bank account, so keen was the buyer to make sure he got delivery of the saw straight from the Show. Two more were bought at the Show and there were enquiries for eight more to follow up.
Stella says: “The Show was well promoted to bring the customers along and I put the right adverts together for the Show previews. You put it all together and that’s what makes the Show successful.”
The main adaptations D Zambelis wanted for the UK market were a simple, straight forward machine to keep the price down but with a bed that would enable pieces of more than 3m long to be sawn.
So the MBS-L TS has manual head rotation, adjusted and set at 0º, 90º, 180º and 270º, and tilt of 90º-45º as standard, although an automated head is available as an option. The overall length of the saw is 5.23m with a 4250mm x 2200mm table that allows a cut length of up to 3.5m. The table has hydraulically controlled, motorised pop up rollers for easy positioning of the slab, with the option of a motorised loader with hydraulic tilt. The steel frame has an epoxy powder finish as standard, but can be hot-dip galvanized for extra corrosion resistance.
The saw has four modes of operation: manual, for straight forward sawing; automatic, with the facility to store up to 20 cutting lists each of various cuts of different lengths, starts and ends; profiling, with an easy interface to create, load and execute the profiles required; macro, for geometric shapes, including ‘L’ shape worktops, and point-to-point consecutive cuts.
It is easy (ie quick) to set up and comes with a 10HP (7.5kW) motor as standard, although if you want a bit more oomph there is a 15HP (11kW) option or a variable speed drive that operates between 800rpm and 2500rpm, especially useful if you are working a wide range of stones. Any of the motor options take a blade up to 500mm. The head travels on steel guides with angled rack and pinion drives and is raised and lowered on chromed steel columns. The extended X-axis is accompanied by a Y-axis cut of 1.9m and a maximum cutting depth with the standard motor of 156mm. Options include a water tray with built-in recycling pump.