If you went to Vire in Normandy in March for French stone machinery manufacturer Thibaut’s open days you will already have had a preview of two new developments by the company. You might even have heard a whisper about them at the Stone Show in London.

Officially, though, the Octopod hoseless suction cup, which has been eight years in development, and the new T658 edge polisher were being launched at the German Stone+tec exhibition in Nuremberg 13-16 May. Anyone who knew about them beforehand was sworn to secrecy so the launch could have maximum impact.

While the new edge polisher that can polish slabs up to 350mm thick is aimed primarily at the memorial masonry side of the industry, the Octopods could be an attractive proposition to anyone thinking of buying a new workcentre.

The idea of doing away with all the hoses in a vacuum system for holding your workpieces is attractive enough (Thibaut says it will considerably reduce the 25% of makeready time usually spent setting up vacuum cups). And if you have ever had a leak somewhere in all those hoses you will know how long it can take to find and repair, which it doesn’t with Octopod.

Thibaut is aiming to have the cordless and hoseless vacuum pumps available for all its CNC machines from now on, probably as standard but possibly as an option if there should be some opposition to them – after all, being cordless they are operated by batteries.

They will also be available to retrofit to existing Thibaut machines as long as your workcentre is not too old.

Each cup has three sensors and is ‘smart’, so it only uses as much vacuum as is necessary to secure the work. It should, however, always provide enough vacuum because, being smart, it knows if the cups used will not hold the workpiece and will warn the operator, communicating by WiFi with the control consul of the machine.

If a battery runs down during an operation and the remaining cups cannot hold the workpiece on their own, the cups will stop the operation. It is the same if a cup springs a leak. It will stop the job and tell the operator via the control consul where the leak is, so there are no more hours spent looking for it.

Thibaut reckons the batteries will operate for 12 hours at a time before needing to be recharged, which takes three hours. Thibaut also says there is no memory effect on the batteries, so the length of time between charges should not diminish with use.

The edge polisher, meanwhile, might be a bit beyond what most companies in the UK want, although Thibaut believes the T658 can put European memorial producers back in contention with Far Eastern competitors. It can polish all four sides of a stone in one operation, even when one of the sides is an ogee top or a 350mm bullnose.