Cut to your requirements

In a Q&A session, PRF Composites’ sales & marketing director, Hannah Khusainova explains how the company’s flatbed cutting equipment ensures the company continues on an upward trajectory.

PRF Composite Materials is a leading manufacturer and supplier of high-performance materials for the composites industry. Since its formation in 1982, The company has established a reputation for high quality service, supplying the automotive, motorsport, aerospace, defence, wind energy, marine, sports and medical industries.

Q) What industries to your customers typically hail from? Is it mainly for the provision of kits?

We provide materials and kits across all industries. We have previously served the defence sector with large volume kitting of our materials, and currently work with marine, medical and renewable energy manufacturers. If our customers can benefit from kitting our materials, we can provide this option.

Q) And what materials types are predominantly cut on your flatbed machines?

We have machines for cutting both dry and prepreg fabric, and can cut across the spectrum of technical textiles, including ballistic grade aramid if required.

Q) What were your reasons for specifying your flatbed cutting system? For example, was it because of an increase in volumes? Customer demands? A need for faster production throughput? Quality requirements? Accuracy?

All of these requirements are relevant when considering the choice of a CNC machine.

Q) In terms of a wish list, what types of demands did you specify in terms of purchasing a flatbed cutting system?

Budget is always important, however PRF is built on a foundation of quality and technical expertise. As such, quality was also fundamental in our selection of machines. After sales support is also crucial – this is the single most important factor after the immediate considerations.

Q) Tell me something about your flatbed cutting machines you use. For example, what kinds of materials does it; what CAD and material utilisation nesting software does it possess; Does it have twin-head capabilities; Does it have any lights-out/24-7 remote running capabilities; Does it have any part marking capabilities?

We use static, rotary and oscillating blades and we have a great deal of experience achieving high quality results with the more difficult technical textiles; we can cut Dyneema and Kevlar, including ballistics grade Kevlar up to 25mm thick. We have machines for cutting dry and prepreg materials. We use CAD to nest parts for optimum material usage and we are able to mark our parts according to customers’ requirements.

Q) Do the flatbed machines come with automated roll-feeding of dry fabric/prepreg material equipment to the machine’s bed?

We have specified our machines for our own requirements and have then made bespoke adjustments to these in order to function in a more effective way for certain projects.

Q) Do you have a favourite customer success story through using the flatbed cutting machines that you can bring to mind?

Unfortunately - as with most of our work – the details of our kitting remain confidential. However, we have achieved some fantastic results for our customers and have run some very successful projects, both in the past and some projects currently in production.

We are also using our kitting capability to provide our range of tooling prepregs in tile stacks, cut and arranged to our customers’ requirements. These have enabled us to assist in speeding up our customers’ manufacturing and have been very well received.

www.prfcomposites.com