How often should you service woodwork machinery?

If you want to produce quality items with your woodworking machinery, having a good routine for its cleaning, maintenance, and particularly servicing is essential. When you keep your woodworking machinery in good condition, you are more likely to get the best results from it. It will help to prolong its life, and it will be safer for those who use it. A good servicing schedule can help you reduce the risk of workplace accidents.

Whilst it is easy to create a schedule for regular machinery cleaning and quickly fall into a routine of doing this on a weekly or daily basis, depending on how much the machinery is used, it is a little harder when it comes to servicing. This should be carried out at regular intervals, but the big question that many companies have is just how often should woodwork machinery be serviced?

Consider your usage
When it comes to considering a service for your woodworking machinery, a good company that offers this will help you determine how often it should be done. For the most part, servicing is recommended at either 6-month intervals or annually. This will depend entirely on the types of machines that you have and the amount of use that they get. In a busy woodworking environment where the machines get used a lot, it is more likely that a 6-monthly servicing routine will be suggested.

Having your woodworking machinery serviced regularly will help to spot not only those parts that need replacing on the machinery because they have worn down but also pinpoint any things that are all right at the moment but may need attention in the near future. This can help you to ensure that your machinery is working properly and safely at all times without needing to replace expensive parts when it isn’t time to do so.
Whilst regular servicing may seem like an inconvenience, a few hours without a working machine while it is serviced will be much better for your company than a machine that has broken and requires either a replacement part or is not mendable and requires full replacement. The latter may completely disrupt your production schedules.

Between services
As we have mentioned, a good servicing routine will help you ensure that your machinery is working at maximum efficiency and accuracy. However, between servicing, it is important to ensure that you are committed to a regular programme of cleaning and maintenance for your woodworking machinery, as this can help you avoid bigger issues.

Dust can be a real issue, and there is no real way of avoiding it so make sure you have a good dust extractor and that you are cleaning all the parts of your machines regularly. Machinery should always be unplugged before you begin any type of cleaning or maintenance work on it to ensure your safety. Furthermore, you need to make sure that you are using appropriate products to do any cleaning as otherwise, you may cause issues for the machinery.

Remember if you spot an issue that needs closer attention contact the company that services your machinery and get them to take a look at it.