The South Korean company DCM Co — based on the Yellow Sea coast some 50km from Seoul — manufactures high-precision circular-saw blades, as well as special-purpose cutters and circular knives.
It supplies its products world-wide to most industries involved with sawing and cutting metal, using a dozen Vollmer machines (
www.vollmer-group.com) to make its carbide-tipped and other circular-saw blades; these machines include CHD, CHF and CHP models for processing blades in one set-up.
An Youngmoon, managing director and founder of DCM, said: “At the end of the 1970s, I was teaching at the vocational school and noticed that our circular-saw blades forsawing metal cylinders were always blunt and often broke.
"This was my motivation to develop high-quality circular-saw blades that could permanently withstand the tough conditions of metal cutting.”
Mr Youngmoon’s DCM company first started manufacturing high-speed-steel circular-saw blades, soon followed by friction saw blades (these have a high peripheral speed and are used for cutting steel pipes and profiles).
“Very high temperatures are generated by these circular-saw blades due to the high levels of speed and the friction.
"Indeed, the separation cut becomes a mixture of sawing and melting with the ‘red-heat’ effect.
An Stephan, DCM’s joint managing director, said: “Before we developed our first friction saw blades at the end of the 1980s, this type of saw was imported into South Korea.
"Today we supply almost three quarters of all friction saw blades to the domestic metal-working market. Our aim is to become the leading provider of circular saws in South Korea and to continue to grow on an international level.”
Stefan Brand, CEO of the Vollmer Group, said: “South Korea has developed into a high-end market for sharpening machines in the metals and composites sector, and the demand for service and user support is growing.
"With the subsidiary we set up in Seoul in 2016, we can look after customers such as DCM even more intensively and competently than before.”