Press releases

Saving a rare breed - The rocking horse

A Coventry company is helping to ensure that the traditional wooden children's rocking horse does not become extinct.

GOM UK, which is based at the University of Warwick Science Park's Business Innovation Centre in Binley, is working with a firm in Staffordshire to make it possible to produce rocking horses on mass.

GOM was approached by Stoke-on-Trent based Patterns and Dies to take a three-dimensional measurement of the toy using the latest computer technology.

Patterns and Dies is now producing CAD generated cutter paths from those measurements to make each section of a rocking horse by CNC machining rather than being hand carved.

Clive Sharratt, managing director of Patterns and Dies, said: "The people who hand carve rocking horses are becoming fewer and fewer.

"We were approached by a Sheffield-based firm which wanted to see if they could be produced on mass by machine.

"That is when we contacted GOM UK as we needed to create a CAD model of the hand carved rocking horse in order to generate the CNC cutter paths to reproduce the horses.

"The process is now underway and will enable a rocking horse to be made by machine.

"The process will also be much quicker. A hand carved horse would take about two weeks to make whereas the machinery will allow ten to be made in three days."

Andrew Cuffley, of GOM UK, said the system used to create the CAD model of the rocking horse could be applied to a variety of products.

He said: "This is certainly one of the most unusual products we have been asked to measure in this way.

"Our clients include automotive design centres, aerospace and consumer goods manufacturers as well as research and development laboratories.

"But the principle behind this type of optical measurement system can be applied to almost anything as shown by the work we have done with the rocking horse.

"It is great to think that the very latest technology is going help keep alive one of the most traditional toys in the world."

Karen Aston, manager of the Business Innovation Centre in Binley, said: "This is yet more evidence of the diversity of work in the innovative and creative sectors that is taking place at the Innovation Centre.

"GOM UK is a great example of the types of firms we like to attract here because they are right on the cutting edge of technology."

14/10/2003