PlastiMatix offers all-electric Bondini FARMINGTON HILLS, MICH. — PlastiMatix LLC of Farmington Hills has started selling Italian-made all-electric injection presses built by Bodini Presse srl of Besozzo, Italy.
Bodini has expanded production to supply North America. Its presses are available in clamping forces from 28-500 tons.
The Bodini electric machines incorporate a Moog controller and an AC brushless servomotor from Vickers.
PlastiMatix will provide sales, service, parts and engineering support for the Italian machines.
JSW tech center adds customer programs
ELK GROVE VILLAGE, ILL. — JSW Plastics Machinery Inc. is beefing up customer education at JSW's new technical center in Elk Grove Village.
The 16,500-square-foot center is equipped with four all-electric JSW presses and two hydraulic machines.
The company will offer three-day continuing-education sessions. Four programs will be held, for machine maintenance, machine setup and operation, plastics processing and new processing technologies.
Harry Esaka, a processing engineer with more than 15 years of experience, will conduct the sessions.
The center also will allow customers to run mold and resin trials, and will provide technical service and spare parts for the midwestern United States.
Jerry Johnson, vice president of operations, said customers need to keep up with new technology.
"Consistent high quality and optimized productivity are key processor concerns in a very competitive business," he said.
Routsis, PTR team up for plastics training
DRACUT, MASS. — A new training joint venture hopes to give plastics processors the best of both worlds — interactive training on computers and traditional teacher-led classes.
Two companies have announced a joint venture — A. Routsis Associates of Dracut and Polymer Training Resources based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Routsis makes interactive CD-ROMs for training, complete with animation.
PTR, formerly DC Wilson Co., focuses on instructor-based training at the customer's factory.
The companies are working together to produce new training products. Their Internet sites are linked — PTR at www.polymer training.com and Routsis at www.traininteractive.com.
DSM Chinese venture to produe nylon 6
HEERLEN, NETHERLANDS — As part of its commitment to expand in China, DSM NV is forming a joint venture with a Chinese textiles company to produce nylon 6 polymer.
Heerlen-based DSM announced that its DSM Fibre Intermediates subsidiary will join Guangdong Xinhui Meida Nylon Co. Ltd. to establish a 100 million-pound-per-year plant in Xinhui to supply nylon 6 chips for engineering plastics and textile fibers.
The new facility, set to begin operating later this year, will make use of caprolactam raw material supplied in part by DSM Fibre Intermediates. Output will be directed largely at the growing Chinese market, according to DSM.
"The joint venture with Guangdong will secure sales for our caprolactam plants," Dick Venderbos, director of DSM Fibre Intermediates, said in a DSM news release. "The venture is perfectly in keeping with our strategy for the rapidly expanding Chinese market."
DSM will hold a 25 percent stake in the new joint venture.
Guangdong Xinhui, which employs 1,600, has sales of more than $96 million, according to DSM.
The Chinese company is a leading regional manufacturer of yarns and textiles.
Maguire technology uses liquid color
ASTON, PA. — Maguire Products Inc. has received a U.S. patent for a method that combines the technologies of gravimetric blending and liquid color metering. The Aston firm introduced a system with the technology in 1996.
The patent (No. 6,007,236) covers "the use of a weigh scale blender to measure and blend granular plastic resin together with a liquid-color material prior to molding or extrusion." Maguire said a special adaptor feeds liquid color into the weigh changer of the blender. The color coats the resin pellets in the mixing chamber.
Company President Stephen Maguire invented the system. Before the company introduced it, he said, gravimetric blenders were limited to using colors in the form of pellet concentrates or powder.