Drawn before it is cut.
Every bespoke piece is made from one approved drawing. You sign it off in writing, and that is the only drawing the floor works from. No guessing, no second version in somebody's head.
Factory / 9 Milk Street, Deritend
Factory Where your idea stops being a drawing and becomes the thing you pick up.
You approve the drawing, then you can come and watch it being cut, sculpted, fabricated and sprayed, a short walk from the desk it was drawn on. Wood, metal, foam, fibreglass, paint and wiring all happen on our own production floor.
See what we make
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52.472222, −1.894722 · B5 5TR
Most ideas are drawn in one building and made in five others. Every handover in between loses a little of what you asked for.
Here the studio and the factory share one roof. The joiner, the sculptor, the metalworker, the painter and the person who drew your job all work a few steps apart.
When something on the floor does not work, the drawing changes before the material does. You hear about it from the people doing it.
Disciplines
Every trade a brand build needs, under one roof.
Open a discipline to see what it makes for you and the kit it runs on. Each family is lit in the colour of a room it builds for.
Draw and shape
From the approved design to parts cut true to it.
2D and 3D drawings, general arrangements, cut lists and machine toolpaths. You approve the drawing in writing before anything is cut, and it is the only drawing the floor works from.
We capture an existing object, a face or a space and model from it. Useful when a prop has to match a real product, or a build has to fit a room that was never drawn.
Printed components, patterns and small repeat detail parts. Often the fastest route from a drawing to something you can hold.
Three-axis routing for sheet and components in plastics, MDF and board. Five-axis cutting for large sculptural forms in polystyrene and foam. Repeat parts come out identical, the first and the last.
Fine parts, lettering, logos and pattern cut or marked into acrylic, ply and board.
Wood
The timber-led core of the floor.
Framing, carcassing and the structural timber behind sets, stands and fit-outs. Built to be strong, quick to put up and quick to take down.
Counters, display furniture, cabinets, plinths and bar fronts, jointed and finished to stand up to the public.
Round work on the lathes: legs, pedestals, handles, spheres and cones, from a few centimetres up to architectural scale.
Sculpt and mould
Shapes that do not come off a saw.
Carved and modelled by hand in foam, clay and timber. Characters, giant products, rock faces and organic forms.
Moulds, jigs and fixtures so a prop can be made five times or fifty times to one standard. Tooling and drawings are kept, so a repeat run comes back faster.
Glass-reinforced plastic shells laid up from our own moulds. Light, tough and weatherproof, for pieces that live outdoors or get handled.
Hero props, oversized replicas and volume prop runs. Sculpted, moulded, cast and assembled, then finished by hand.
Metal and structure
What holds everything else up.
Steel and aluminium cut and fabricated into frames, armatures, brackets and fixings.
Stages, platforms, partitions and the structure under a stand or a fit-out. Drawn, built and checked so it is safe to stand on and safe to stand near.
Finish
The last pair of hands before your customer sees it.
Primer to topcoat in our own 2K spray shop, colour-matched to your brand reference and finished to showroom standard.
Texture, ageing, paint and patina that reads on camera and up close. Rust, stone, wood grain and wear, painted on.
Seating, banquettes, padded panels and soft finishes for retail, hospitality and event furniture.
Model making, gilding, lettering, papercraft and the small hand-finished details that make a window worth stopping for.
Move and light
Things that move, blink and glow.
Mechanisms, motion and embedded electronics. Built to be serviced, so the moving part still moves at the end of the run.
Power, screens, show lighting and control, wired into the build on our floor rather than added on site.
Deliver
From our floor to yours.
Our own crews take the job to site, out of hours or into a live shop, put it up and hand it over. The people who built it are the people who fit it.
01The street
02The yard
03The assembly hall04On the floor
05Headroom
06The machine shop
07Mid-build
08The clean bay
09Next doorMachinery
The kit on the floor.
Pick a family to see which machines and shops it runs on. Everything listed sits on our floor at Milk Street.
Stillroom factory · plant and shopsMilk-St-9 · B5 5TR
| Machine | Zone | What it does for your job | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAD workstations | Drawing office | 2D and 3D drawings, cut lists and the toolpaths the machines read. | On floor |
| 3D scanning kit | Drawing office | Captures an object or a space so we can model from it. | On floor |
| 3D printers | Machining | Printed components, patterns and repeat detail parts. | On floor |
| 3-axis CNC router | Machining | Sheet and component routing in plastics, MDF and board. | On floor |
| 5-axis CNC | Machining | Large sculptural forms cut in polystyrene and foam. | On floor |
| Laser cutter / engraver | Cutting and finishing | Fine parts, lettering and marking in acrylic, ply and board. | On floor |
| Panel saw | Machining | Breaks full sheets down into clean, square panels. | On floor |
| Table saw | Machining | Rips and crosscuts timber to size. | On floor |
| Planer / thicknesser | Machining | Takes rough timber flat, square and to thickness. | On floor |
| Spindle moulder | Machining | Runs mouldings, edges and profiles along timber. | On floor |
| Bandsaws | Machining | Curves, lathe blanks and metal section, one for timber and one for metal. | On floor |
| Lathes | Machining | Legs, pedestals, handles, spheres and cones. | On floor |
| Pillar drill | Machining | Accurate, repeatable holes for fixings and joints. | On floor |
| Metalwork equipment | Machining | Cutting and fabrication for frames, armatures and fixings. | On floor |
| Prop shop | Cutting and finishing | Sculpt, mould, cast and assemble, one-offs and volume runs. | On floor |
| Animatronics and electrics | Cutting and finishing | Mechanisms, motion, power and lighting, tested before they leave. | On floor |
| 2K spray shop | Cutting and finishing | Primer, colour and hard-wearing topcoats, extracted. | On floor |
| Dust and fume extraction | Whole floor | Local exhaust on the machines, the prop shop and the spray shop. | On floor |
| Assembly benches | Storage and assembly | Where every bespoke job is put together and dry-fitted. | On floor |
| Assembly hall | Assembly hall | Full-height space to stand a big piece up whole before it leaves. | On floor |
| Site tool van | Site | Takes the crew and the kit to your venue. | On the road |
Showing all kit
Staff
The hands that build it.
A core team employed here, on this floor. You meet the people building your job, and they stay on it until it is fitted.
Production Director
Rafael Rose James
Runs the factory and the build side of every job, from the first cutting list to the handover on site.
Factory manager
Runs the floor day to day: the build queue, the machines and the standard every piece leaves at.
Carpenters and cabinet makers
Frame, joint, fit and assemble. Most jobs pass through their hands more than once.
Machinists and turners
Run the routers, the saws and the lathes, and keep every part true to the drawing.
Sculptors and prop makers
Carve, mould, cast and lay up the shapes a saw cannot make.
Painters and finishers
Technical spray, scenic paint and upholstery. The last hands before your customer sees it.
CAD support
Turns approved designs into production drawings and machine files.
Install crew
Load the van, fit it on site and hand it over clean.
Capabilities and know-how
What the floor knows.
Built for the door it goes through.
Pieces are designed to break down for the van, the goods lift and the overnight install, then go back together without a fight on site.
Finished for the camera.
A shop window gets photographed more than it gets touched. Finishes are picked for how they read under lights and on a phone screen, and for how they survive the public.
Tooled for the repeat.
One hero piece or a run of seventy-five, made to one standard. Moulds, jigs and drawings are kept, so the next run or the next rollout comes back faster.
A safe floor and a safe site.
Extraction on the machines, the prop shop and the spray shop, COSHH assessments for what we use, and site management under CDM when we install.
How a job moves
Drawing. Factory. Install.
Drawing
Your approved design becomes a production drawing and a set of cutting files. You sign it off before anything is cut.
Factory
Cut, sculpted, built, wired, sprayed and dry-fitted on our floor. You are welcome to come and see it mid-build.
Install
Packed, loaded and fitted by the crew that built it, then handed over on site.
The rooms the factory builds for
03 Modelroom
04 Packroom
05 Proproom
06 Setroom
07 Themeroom
08 Motionroom
14 Displayroom
15 Shoproom
16 Standroom
17 Activationroom
18 Eventroom
Visit
Come and see your job being made.
Bring the brief, or bring the thing you are launching. We will walk you round the floor and show you how it would be built.
The factory
9 Milk Street, Deritend, England, B5 5TR
52.472222, −1.894722