About the Project
PES Scanning were asked by our Wood Routing partner, GCNC Ltd to support them in a project to help restore a wood panelled room in a former Conservative Club building in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. The Club was housed in a Grade II-listed, 17th century house named “Stanboroughs” where it is believed Winston Churchill began his political career.
The Restoration Challenge
The upstairs of the building contains a number of special historical features, including a wooden staircase and the wood panelled room. The room itself was wooden clad on all the walls, excluding the ceiling, with simple, but ornate, carved features on the panels. The wood also ‘framed’ the large sash windows and traditional bay window, plus there was a large ornate fire place that required careful restoration and reassembly.
The developers worked with the local Heritage Trust office, to ensure the accurate restoration of the buildings listed features, and during the initial review of the building it was found that a number of the wooden panels needed to be replaced or repaired, ensuring any restored panels were an exact replication of the originals.
The Scanning Challenge
The first challenge was to accurately reproduce the wooden carved features, from the panels selected for scanning. The original panels were carved, and our team wanted to ensure that the replacement panels would capture the original texture and individuality when reverse engineered.
Once the different panels were selected the PES scanning team captured the data by using a combination of Photogrammetry and 3D Optical Blue light Scanning, using our GOM scanning system with a 300mm volume lenses to capture the original data to a high level of detail and resolutions.
The scanning data output is in the form of a polygon mesh (link to polygon mesh info). The mesh is imported into our CAD system so the data can be output into .stl file format which is compatible with GCNC Ltd’s CNC machine software (Note there are a range of file formats we can deliver). The data was transferred to GCNC for manufacture.
Manufacturing the new pieces
Manufacturing in wood is a specialist process and we have always partnered with GCNC Ltd in all our restoration projects that either require a manufactured solution in wood, stone or many other materials.
We provided .stl formatted data to GCNC which was used to programme their CNC system, enabling the manufacture of the panels. The process includes setting up the CNC programme to create the best cutting paths and tooling to ensure that the detail from the 3D scan data (.stl file) was best utilised.
Once the panels were completed GCNC marked out the panels to ensure this valuable ‘jigsaw’ went together perfectly when back in the room. The panels were reattached in the room and now await redecoration.