Can't Touch This (Web): Part 2
Last month we covered the web and process motives for touch-free web handling. This month we ll begin to review web line options for Can t Touch This...
Can't Touch This (Web): Part 1
More than a decade ago, rapper MC Hammer made famous forever the line U Can't Touch This. I've worked with converters who use this phrase to describe...
Cinching Belt Tightening Gone Bad: Part Two
The expression it's a cinch usually means something is easy, as easy as tightening a belt. However, as we learned last month, cinching is not something...
Cinching Belt Tightening Gone Bad: Part One
In today's economic climate, belt tightening sounds like a fiscally wise move. Belt tightening, also known as cinching, is good for budgets, trash bags,...
Differential Rewinding: Part Three
This month we continue our diagnosis of differential rewinding. The last two columns reviewed the whys and hows of differential rewinding, but before filling your prescription for two new differential shafts, let's review potential detrimental side effects....
Differential Rewinding: Part Two
Last month we made the case for using differential rewinding shafts. This month, let's talk about what differentiates one differential shaft from another....
Differential Rewinding: Part One
Don't try to do ten things at once. While this is good advice, sometimes ten things come flying at you at once. If you focus on one item, you risk dropping the other nine....
Five Questions and Answers on Lubrication
Lubrication occurs when a gas or liquid separates or reduces the contact between two surfaces. Lubrication is used intentionally to reduce wear and increase...
Well Done Tension
I'm in love with a new gadget that makes cooking easier. It's the electronic temperature probe. These have been available for manufacturing applications...
Goldilocks and the Three Bears Deal with Traction Problems
Rollers are the hands of web handling the hands we use to grip the web to meet our goals for web speed, position, and flatness. To be able to position...
Outsourcing Is Trendy, But Is It Right for Process Expertise?
Outsourcing and supplier management have been hot topics over the last decade. Using external resources can provide budget flexibility for economic ups...
Stripe Slitting: The Challenge of Staying within the Lines
Lines make life more difficult. Remember coloring as a child. At first it was just you, your crayons, white paper, and free expression. Life was easy....
Strand Tracking Problems on Your Slitter/Rewinder
A slitter/rewinder has two goals: Divide the web into strands (slitting); and create uniform individual rolls (winding). This plan has three potential...
Mapping Your Way to Better Tension Control
Web handling defects often can be traced back to a specific location in your web line. Web tension at that location is always a prime factor in understanding...
Pyramids and Wound Rolls: Long-Lasting Quality
What comes to mind when you think about the pyramids? First, the pyramids have survived the test of time. Second, they have a distinct and impressive...
Web Line Knowledge Offers a Competitive Advantage
Web lines are the backbone of the converting industry the equipment used in converting paper, film, foil, and other webs into valued product. In this...
Wide Web Handling and the Problems It Can Bring
As new film casting machines have grown in width during the past several years, so have casting machine windups. One problem that arises with wider rolls...
MD Wrinkle Formation Causes and Cures
MD (machine-direction) wrinkle problems (sometimes called tin canning) still plague many converters and/or film suppliers. The two main contributing parameters...
Slitting Adhesive-Coated, Low-Strength Films
Low-strength films, such PE or cast PP, sometimes are coated with an adhesive and slit into customer-sized rolls. Low-strength films do not have sharply...
Belt Tracking Problems Require Careful Attention
Many wide-belt processes, whether they are made of metal, fabric, or plastic, may experience tracking problems. Some will have tracking problems even...
Web Scratch Solution: Regulate Your Running Rolls
Driven rolls also may scratch the web surface, even though they are very accurately speed-controlled.
Over-Tensioned Webs and What to Do about Them
Webs are often tensioned beyond their elastic limit in specialty-type processes such as metallizing. Usually, the high tension is in a zone where web...
WEB SOLUTIONS
The key to a successful and low-cost upgrade is to have a competent engineering analysis done of all the critical machine interactions…
A Proposal for Spreading Base Web During Melt Extrusion
Melt extruded resin polymers on cloth and other webs sometimes result in transverse direction (TD) curl of the laminate. And this curl often causes poor roll formation when the base roll is slit into large-diameter, narrow-width slit rolls....
A Glossary of Descriptive TermsSixth Installment
Shaftless unwind/rewind stands: Basic pieces of equipment used in holding the supply roll(s) and production roll(s) on the converting machine. These stands...
