Italian machinery company Breton is taking an even bigger stand at Marmomacc this year in order to show all its latest ranges, including wire saws from Bideseimpianti, which it took over in 2011. Carl Sharkey from Breton UK will be on the stand.

Carl admits he did not think there would be much demand for wire saws in the UK but says he has been impressed by the level of interest in the past two years. This year he has sold single wire saws to Dimensional Stone in Bradford and Wells Cathedral Stonemasons and is currently quoting on two, big multiwires. “Circular saws have had their day for primary sawing, I think,” says Carl.

He says the main attraction of wires is that they do not need the foundations required by a big circular saw and because they are so quiet in operation they can be left working overnight in most locations.

Breton machines are at the top end of the market and people buying them tend to be bigger companies wanting production lines rather than single machines. “You can buy a CNC from anyone these days but not so many people can compete on whole lines,” says Carl, although he says sales have been “a really mixed bag”.

One of Breton UK’s customers is J Rotherham, in Yorkshire, one of the UK’s biggest stone processors. It has just bought a new sawing line based on the SmartCut SNC 550 saw. Rotherham has made a video of the line being installed and working, which you can view on its website – www.jrotherham.co.uk/videos

It also has on order a Contourbreton NC300 workcentre with the Robocup system that automatically selects the machine’s double-acting suction cups from the store and positions them on the self-blocking valves according to the preset program and the pieces to be processed. It loads and unloads itself and cleans the table down in between each job.

Carl Sharkey also heads Laser Products Europe (LPE), which has established a distribution network throughout Europe for an American digital templating system. It has just signed a distribution deal with the major German-based wholesaler Weha to distribute the LPE templater in five European countries. Weha sells a lot of digital templaters in Europe and in future they will all be LPE units.

Rotherham likes these templaters as well and has just bought another seven of them.

The latest development of the lasers is new software that can measure and edit in full 3D mode to create comprehensive 3D drawings.

Carl has also now established a company to sell diamond tools for CNC machines, mobile tools such as Flex and consumables. It goes under the name of LPE Tooling.

Both Laser Products Europe and Breton UK doubled their sales last year to produce a combined turnover of £1.25million. Carl says with sales in the first half of 2014 already matching that, he is anticipating another 100% increase in turnover this year.

As his operation is now becoming diverse, he has formed an umbrella company called LPE Group. His aim is to create a corporate image for the various companies within the group and benefit from a recognisable brand. The new Group has a new website – www.lpe-group.com