Uxbridge-based Inplas Plastic Fabrications Ltd , which has been established for 25 years and employs 10 people, recently undertook a project with the renowned Cornish hand-crafted furniture designer Sebastian Blakeley.

The design brief was for a table made from 200kg of walnut wood, resting on acrylic legs — with no fixings, screws or adhesives.

After a number of visits to Inplas (www.inplas.co.uk), the profile shapes that would achieve this seemingly impossible feat were agreed, and Mr Blakeley began hand-crafting the wood.

With more than £3,500 worth of 80mm-thick acrylic that needed machining as five separate parts, Inplas turned to Tamworth-based tooling supplier ITC Ltd (www.itc-ltd.co.uk) for advice.

Inplas director Trevor Smith said: “The 3m-long stringer beams slot into the top of the CNC-machined legs with a 45deg bevel angle on the corner of the exposed beam.

"We knew that we needed specialist cutting tools and technical support, so ITC was our first port of call.

"The first issue we had was the thickness of the acrylic, which meant that we needed a cutting length of at least 80mm, and we wanted a balanced tool for optimum surface finish and precision.

ITC supplied a specially modified 2631-12 Series two-fluted extra-long end mill with additional necking to provide the 80mm cutting length plus an additional 5mm clearance.”

With the cost of the acrylic and the impeccable finish and precision required, Inplas decided to conduct a trial run on an MDF template.

Mr Smith added: “ITC supplied the special tool in just a couple of days and was on hand for our MDF trial to advise on speeds, feeds and machining strategy.

"The trial went perfectly, and we then had the confidence to machine the five acrylic components for the project itself.

"They required more than 15hr of machining, plus 85hr of hand polishing.”