World Class Film Corp. is investing $3.6 million in a new, multilayer blown film line at its Yonkers, N.Y., headquarters plant.
The firm will install a five-layer line from Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp. of Lincoln, R.I., equipped to eliminate scratch marks and other imperfections, said World Class director Ron Shemesh.
``Metalizing operations, for example, need film with very few surface defects,'' he said.
World Class specializes in films for metalizing and laminating. It needs the line to supply East Coast markets with multilayer, high-gloss and barrier films for food and medical applications, Shemesh said in a telephone interview. Yonkers' 13 lines now make monolayer and three-layer films. The new line will be able to extrude films with outer layers of metallocene polyethylenes and high levels of ethylene vinyl acetate and complex barrier films.
The new, 700-pound-per-hour line will be fully operational by March. It is the second major equipment purchase made by World Class in less than a year. At NPE 1997, the firm announced it had spent $2.6 million on a seven-layer Battenfeld Gloucester blown film line. World Class installed that line at its Sparks, Nev., Barrier Films operation in summer.
Shemesh said his firm also is discussing the possibility of adding a nine-layer line at Sparks with Brampton Engineering Inc. of Brampton, Ontario. Sparks now runs five five- and seven-layer film lines.
The W&H Varex line includes W&H's patented Nostic noncontact turning bar system and a rotating, stabilizing cage that reduces markings and blemishes on film. Shemesh said the Yonkers facility has enough room to accommodate the new line and any other future machinery acquisitions.
