New Ovens Help Leading Puppet Maker Create New Cast of TV and Film Stars

Carbolite is playing a key role in helping to create some of the future generation’s best loved TV and film characters. Some of the most popular characters in the world of children’s television such as ‘Bob the Builder’, ‘Postman Pat’, ‘Fifi and the Flowertots’ and ‘Pingu’ were ‘born’ in the state-of-the-art workshops run by Mackinnon & Saunders, a UK-based company that designs and builds high quality animation puppets and models for use by international film makers, TV entertainment programme companies and producers of TV commercials.

New additions to Mackinnon & Saunders’ well-equipped Altrincham-based workshops are two Carbolite ovens installed during June 2010 to help produce the new generation of foam latex characters the puppet maker is in the process of creating.

Mackinnon & Saunders is using the ovens to cure foam latex used in the manufacture of its new batch of puppet creations for its show Raa Raa the Noisy Lion. Some of the company’s previous projects include a number of Oscar nominated film projects as well as creating several characters for international box office successes like Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr Fox” and Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” and “Corpse Bride.”

The larger of the two new ovens is a 200 litre capacity standard fan convection Peak PF200 oven featuring a 300°C maximum temperature capability. The oven is fitted with an over-temperature protection option to DIN 12-880 class 2. The model maker has also installed a smaller fan convection oven, the Apex AX120, which is a 120 litre capacity, 250°C maximum temperature oven. The new ovens are both compliant with safety standards BS EN 61010-2-010-1995 & BS EN 50014:1993 and meet the ‘Electrically Heated Drying Oven’ performance standard BS 2648.

“The ovens are essentially used to bake foam latex so that it cures,” explained Chris Bowden, a producer at Mackinnon & Saunders. “A lot of our puppets are either made entirely from foam latex or have a foam latex centre to them. The ovens are an integral part of the process.”