Ambler Technologies, based in Rochdale, has designed and produced a chair for Trelleborg Advanced Engineering Materials. The materials group commissioned the chair to showcase its new TB400 low-density epoxy tooling board, in particular to illustrate its machinability and finish quality.

The sleek and shiny chair that was produced met the brief from Trelleborg AEM for it to incorporate complex shape and compound curvature, as well as having to be finished to the highest standard.

The design was developed using Delcam’s PowerSHAPE CAD system, which was able to generate quickly the smoothly flowing curves making up the shape.

After the design was approved, sections were taken from the 3D model to enable the material to be rough cut to an approximate size. The component parts were bonded together and then machined with programs generated from the PowerMILL CAM software.

After final polishing, an epoxy surface coating was added. The final chair was shown on the Trelleborg stand at the 2009 JEC composites exhibition in Paris.

Ambler general manager Craig Pickford said: “The [Delcam] software fits well with the traditional patternmaking skills that form the core expertise at Ambler. It is an important part of the strong technical foundations that have enabled our company’s recent growth and development.”

Ambler specialises in CNC machining of epoxy resin and polyurethane tooling board. It has also developed technology to produce lay-up tools and moulds for glass-reinforced plastics and has more recently also moved into carbon fibre-reinforced materials.