Biesse Machinery offers the Viet brand Opera R, an automated sanding machine for MDF doors with flat center panels that can also remove cross-grain scratching from solid wood doors.

The Opera R incorporates 3-D optical scanning and robotics with a standard orbital sander. It won a Challengers’ Award at IWF 2016 in Atlanta.

“The Opera R is the only automated solution in the market today that’s able to sand internal panels of kitchen cabinet doors with square corners,” product manager Mike Johnson says.

“Shaker-style doors with a flat square panel are one of the hottest kitchen fads right now. A majority of them are being produced out of MDF and then painted. So you need to be able to sand the routed panel before you Thermofoil or primer paint. Before the Opera R, the only way you were able to do that was by hand.”

Another feature is the patented system that can maintain pressure on stiles and rails, regardless of thickness.

The machine self-regulates its abrasive wear, always pulling dust collection through the abrasive. It tracks the amount of linear feet sanded by an abrasive disk, cleans the disk with a blast of compressed air and changes the disk automatically.

Johnson adds that dust is captured inside the machine for a cleaner work environment.

The Opera R has a base price of $225,000. The price goes up when more robotic features are added.

For more, visit www.biesse.com.

This article originally appeared in the January 2017 issue.