Case Study – Creative Spirit

SAGETECH GETS CREATIVE

In 1989, when Dave Denton founded Creative Spirit, he started providing a design and print service. This remains a major part of his business, with this part covering both screen and textile printing.

However as so often happens, his customers, many of whom are active exhibitors at various shows, started asking Dave for modular systems involving extensive timber construction. By the very nature of this type of business, it needs to meet exacting and often last-minute demands of customers. To have had cutting in-house at that stage would have involved people working on their own in the building, often at weekends, and Dave was especially concerned with the safety aspects. He was able to find someone locally who was willing to provide the sub contract cutting service, and this has worked well for many years.

Saving Cost Yet Increasing Payback

However, with the sub-contractor being essentially a one-man band, and looking to retire, and with the cost of sub contracting rising to several hundred pounds a month, Dave realised that bringing their cutting in-house could save considerable cost and give a rapid payback for the investment involved. It was on that basis that Dave approached Sagetech Machinery and purchased one of their Zapkut ZM16 machines, capable of cutting 10’ x 5’ sheets. Dave is very impressed with the accuracy of the machine now that it is installed and fully aligned, saying that it is cutting square. In the past, he has been buying in a lot of trays manufactured out of aluminium composite from larger sourcing companies.

He chose the Sagetech Machinery option as this gives very precise depth of cut and straight cut alignment, with rapid dimensional setting, whether along or across a sheet. The Creative Spirit machine is one of the Zapkut ZM range of machines, which start at 8’ x 4’ (2500 x 1250 mm) capacity unit and goes up to 10ft x 5ft (3000mm x 1600mm). O

Darren, as one of the main users of the machine, and who comes from a carpentry and joinery background where accuracy and performance tend to be more demanding than with signmakers, said “it does a great job, and the other lads get on great with it also, and it’s easy enough to use”, remarking that unlike many of the main vertical panel saw manufacturers, who offer only much bigger machines, none of these would have fitted under their low height storage racks, thus the ZM16 has been an excellent solution.

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