Wood Bits
10 April 2009 www.modernwoodworking.com Weeke north America incorporated in Michigan Stiles Machinery announced that Weeke North America has incor-porated in the state of Michigan to manufacture an entry-level series of CNC routers. Based in Northern Germany, Weeke is one of the world's largest manufacturers of CNC equipment. Stiles has been Weeke's exclusive distributor in the U.S. for more than 20 years. The outcome of these collaborative efforts is the Weeke Vantech series of CNC routers for routing panels, plastic, wood, solid surface and more. By manufacturing in the U.S., Weeke can build machines for less without factors such as fluctuating exchange rates and international shipping costs. Weeke North America was estab-lished as a joint venture between the Homag Group, Stiles and Weeke Maschinenbau. Weeke Maschinenbau is a subsidiary of the Homag Group. The new company occupies a 30,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing fa-cility in Grand Rapids and utilizes local manufacturers for compo-nents. The facility produces machines to order, maintains almost no inventory and offers short delivery times. [ t r e n d s W o o d b i t s ] ] ] ] ] Microvellum_Wood0209_PG012.indd 1 1/28/09 8:52:38 AM Circle 222 on Reader Service Card or visit ModernWoodworking.com/info The National Hardwood Lumber As-sociation will offer Hardwoods 101, an educational program on June 1-4, 2009 at the NHLA Inspector Training School in Memphis. NHLA is pleased to offer this pro-gram, as its staff and leaders recognize a high demand for an educational pro-gram that offers the basics of the indus-try for professionals that work within the hardwood industry, but don't have an industry background, said Crystal Oldham, Director of Education. The program will cover species identification, logging/trucking, management, vocabulary, sawmill tour, uses for lumber, standard grading and more. To learn more about Hardwoods 101, or to register for the program, visit www. nhla.com or call 901-399-7555. SCM schedules seminar, launches new Web site SCM Group USA announces its Advanced Wood Di-vision Educational Seminar May 12 13, 2009, focus-ing on architectural millwork, doors, windows and stairs. The two-day event will feature sessions titled: Molding Production: Work Smarter not Harder; How to be Profitable in the Custom Molding Business; CNC Door Manufacturing; CNC Stair Manufactur-ing; and CNC Architectural Millwork Manufactur-ing. The seminar is free to attend and held at the SCM Group-USA headquarters outside of Atlanta, Ga. In other news, SCM Group USA launched a re-designed Web site. New features include a news and events feed, customer success section, video library, more navigation tools and close-up pictures. Phase two of the site will include live chat, SCM Blog, dealer/dis-tributor search and photo galleries of industry events. We designed our new Web site to not only be a place for past, current and future customers to research our machines, but a place where we can keep everyone informed about the industry as well, says Thomas Tuck, SCM Group USA's marketing coordinator. Visit the new site at: www.scmgroup-usa.com. NHLA offers Hardwoods 101 program