manufacturing

Henry talks – polishing

January 2, 2013
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In the latest of his posts, Henry, great-grandson of ercol’s founder, talks about his time in the polishing shop during his factory induction…. Every piece of furniture that comes out of the assembly shops goes over the gangway into the polishing shop. All the pieces leaving the factory will have been coated in a protective [...]

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Henry talks – the jig shop

October 23, 2012
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In his latest post, Henry, the great-grandson of ercol’s founder, talks about his experience in the jig shop: After working around the machine and assembly shop’s for 5 months I had had enough experience of the factory to be allowed in the jig shop. The jig shop has two main jobs, it will make all [...]

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Henry talks – furniture assembly

October 16, 2012
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In the latest of his blogs, Henry, great-grandson of ercol’s founder talks about his time in the assembly shop during his factory induction: Continuing my route through the factory I followed the cramped and sanded parts as they left the machine shop and headed towards the machined part stores. These stores bisect the factory, on [...]

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Henry Talks – cramping

August 15, 2012
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Previously Henry took us through the timber machining process – now he moves onto cramping…..The machined parts will go through the sanding department before heading to either the cramping department – if the parts need to be made into a sub-assembly – before going to the stores, or straight into the machined part stores to [...]

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Henry talks – machine bending

July 11, 2012
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In my last post I talked about hand bending, well now for the machine bending… Nearly all of the bends in the dining chairs will be done by a machine, which you can see in the video below.  The type of bend required in the bow means that up to 10 can be placed in [...]

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Henry talks – steam bending – by hand

June 29, 2012
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In 1945 my great grandfather, Lucian Ercolani, the founder of ercol, had finally developed a way in which the classic Windsor chair could be mass produced. Integral to that process was our unique way of steam bending the back bows. Windsor chairs have been made in the High Wycombe area since the 16th century but [...]

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Henry talks – machine shop

June 19, 2012
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In my last post, I talked about our dimension parts – the timber blanks we machine our parts out of.  And so, then it was off to the machine shop for the next stop on my induction. Dim parts will now either take one of two routes out of the stores, if its a rail [...]

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Henry talks – dimension parts

June 6, 2012
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Every piece of timber in the factory will be sourced from one of two sawmills which we use. One in the US that supplies us with all our oak and elm  and one based in Northern Italy which supplies us with beech and ash.  I started off in the Dim (dimensional) part stores as this [...]

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