Owner and founder, Paul Seddon began his career as a traditional hand engraver. However after 4 years within the trade both Paul and his employers recognised ArtCAM's potential to transfer hand cutting skills seamlessly into CNC programming. Paul states that:

The sculpting mode gives me the creative freedom to produce work that would have been thought impossible before ArtCAM. Getting an idea or concept onto the screen, in any discipline not just engraving, needs to feel natural in order to concentrate on the work and not the process..."

After 12 years within the engraving industry Paul, decided to "go it alone" and set up his own business. According to Paul the decision to purchase ArtCAM for his new service "was a no brainer". Paul said that, "I looked at a few other CADCAM options but none of them come close when it comes to flexibility and speed. It is important for me to be able to create a piece intuitively and quickly. My time is best spent adding detail, not trying to get the software to do what I want."

Design and ArtCAM render of the engraved die

Paul continues to say that, "Delcam are a proactive company, I am kept up to date about updates etc and new products without being bothered by them. Whenever I have had to contact them, the response has been quick and effective."

Working from home Paul's business began by creating ArtCAM models for companies that were new to producing embossing dies. After just 8 months business flourished and Paul bought the company's first premises and 2 CNC machines. Three years on and like many successful companies he has had to reassess his business model to adapt to the current economic climate and has returned to his original business model of freelancing for third party customers in order to expand his customer base.

Die screenshot within ArtCAM

Paul now supplies models to both small and large engraving companies worldwide. Some companies, he says "find us useful to cover holidays or sickness and others may not want to tie up a programmer for the length of time that some more complex models can take."

To create the Embossing and foiling Dies for his customers Paul often "deals with experienced engravers, so we are singing from the same hymn sheet from the off. My customer will supply artwork and normally email or ring with the specific instructions regarding depth, fades, board thickness, level of detail, etc. The jobs can take anything from 30 minutes to the longest job I have done, 3 days!"

Die screenshot within ArtCAM

Since purchasing ArtCAM, Paul has found the ArtCAM Forum a great source of information. He says, "It shows how good other ArtCAM users are, and keeps you on your toes. I often see models on there that look fantastic. I try to replicate certain techniques to recreate the bits that look good. 9 times out of 10 I will eventually get a job that requires a similar technique.

"At the moment I am really into using layers, I will work on five or six layers in a model, which allows me to make fine adjustments on the final model before sending. I like being able to modify details without touching the underlying relief."

When asked for his plans for the future, Paul replied:

The skill sets in ArtCAM are so transferable that I plan to expand my services into other engraving markets."
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For more information on Northmeade CNC you can visit the website: www.northmeade.co.uk