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Vacuum Lift Versus Scissor Lift
Question
Forum Responses
From contributor L: We've had a scissor lift in front of our beam saw for 10 years. Very handy, but has one major drawback. When sliding pre-finished panels off the stack and onto the saw, it is easy to get scratches. The problem is compounded when we are stack cutting. We had a jib crane and vacuum lift for our old CNC and it worked fine. When we put in the new CNC, we put it in a different location to get better flow. Now we are going to put in a gantry crane and use the vacuum lift to serve both the CNC and the saw. To improve flow more, I've purchased some heavy roller conveyor that will hold 7 units of board that the forklift can load from one end, and the vacuum lift can access all 7 units to load both machines. That will eliminate having to fire up the forklift to move material every time you need something different. The vacuum lift will also allow us to pre-position the next load on an air table in front of the saw so we can stack cut without sliding sheet on sheet and having scratches. From contributor J: What kind of pre-finished panels are you cutting? We have cut melamine and HPL panels for more than 20 years on our panel saw by sliding them off the stack and into the saw without any significant scratching issues. It seems that most scratches occur before they arrive in our shop or during handling at various stations after they are cut on the saw. From the original questioner: These are great responses, thanks. Just to clarify, we only cut melamine, HPL panels, raw particleboard, and MDF. From contributor L: Most of our work is HPL or melamine, but there are always some veneer jobs that get mixed in, so we need to accommodate those too. It gets really expensive to screw up a sequence matched veneer panel! From contributor N: We use both. We place the material on the scissor lift and use the vac lift to position it either on the router, table saw, or vertical panel saw. It is mainly used for the router. I have been very happy with my lift.  Click here for higher quality, full size image Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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