Spirex retrofits for Twinshot coinjection
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO - The developer of the Twinshot coinjection molding process has authorized Spirex Corp., a screw and barrel maker, to supply Twinshot technology to the retrofit market.
Youngstown-based Spirex manufactured the original Twinshot system - which features one screw inside another hollowed-out screw - for Community Products LLC of Rifton, N.Y.
Community Products, which makes children's play equipment and products for handicapped children, developed Twinshot for its internal molding operation. The company claims Twinshot can be retrofitted to any existing injection press, after slight modifications.
Traditionally, coinjection molding has used a special press with two barrels. Twinshot uses a single barrel, but two separate melts, thanks to the screw-within-a-screw configuration. When both screws turn together, only the resin outside of the outer screw is moved forward. When the outside screw stops but the inside screw keeps turning, the second material on the inside chamber is pushed forward.
The melt accumulates in two layers as the screws are pushed back. A single, conventional injection cycle drives the combined melts into the mold.
Community Products has set up a marketing arm, called Twinshot Technologies. The firm exhibited at K 2001 in Dusseldorf, Germany, last November.
Twinshot Technologies also wants to license the process to manufacturers of injection molding machines.
Italian machine sales grow 5 percent in '01
MILAN, ITALY - Sales of Italian-made plastics and rubber machinery grew by 5 percent in 2001, reported the Assocomaplast trade association.
Assocomaplast issued its preliminary statistics March 8, showing that 2001 machinery sales grew by 5 percent in 2001, to 3.87 billion euros ($3.5 billion). In 2001, Italian manufacturers sold 3.67 billion euros ($3.3 billion) worth of plastics and rubber machines.
The Milan-based trade association credited strong export sales of more than 2.3 billion euros ($2.1 billion). That represented a 9 percent increase over exports in 2000. Sales of Italian-made equipment to processors in Italy were flat.
9/11 affects exports of Japanese presses
TOKYO - The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks slashed Japanese exports of injection presses to the United States, according to a report in the Japanese trade magazine Synthetic News.
The magazine, in its Dec. 24 edition, quoted statistics from the Association of Japan Plastics Machinery in Tokyo. Japanese suppliers shipped just 48 injection presses to U.S. customers last October, less than half the 102 presses shipped in September.
Synthetic News said Japanese exports, while down from year-earlier levels, had started to recover in 2001 before the attacks. If the U.S. economy recovers, the magazine thinks exports to the United States could return to a level of 150 presses a month in 2002.
Nadem servomotors brought in-house
NAGOYA, JAPAN - Meiki Co. Ltd., which builds the Nadem line of hybrid injection presses, has started to manufacture its own electric servomotors.
The Nagoya-based Meiki developed the alternating-current motors, but they were made by an outside supplier. Officials brought the work in-house to reduce costs, according to a Dec. 21 story in the Japanese newspaper Business & Technology Daily News in Tokyo.
That information is accurate, said an official of Meiki America Corp. in Elk Grove Village, Ill.
The paper reported that Meiki plans to produce 300 motors per month, with full-scale production set to begin this spring.
Meiki's direct-clamping Nadem machines use electric motors for all functions, including building hydraulic pressure with a very small amount of oil for clamping.
Engel E-motion takes technology Oscar
SCHWERTBERG, AUSTRIA - Engel Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH was named Austria's ``most innovative company'' in 2001, a government award popularly referred to as the ``technology Oscar,'' for its all-electric injection molding machine, the E-motion.
More than 800 companies competed for the award, organized by the Vienna-based Innovation Agency on behalf of the Austrian Federal Minister for Business and Labor and regional governments in Austria.
The E-motion is the world's first tie-barless, all-electric press. Johannes Schwertner, spokesman for the jury and chairman of UTA Telekom AG, chief sponsor of the award, said the molding press met all of the selection criteria: innovation, benefit, marketability, economic efficiency and ecology.
Engel is based in Schwertberg.
In other news, Engel will build 100 injection presses at its new South Korean factory by the end of March, the end of the Austrian press maker's fiscal year.
For the next fiscal year, 2002-03, Engel plans to double production in Korea, to about 200 machines.
An inauguration ceremony was held in October at Engel Machinery Korea Ltd. in Pyongtaek.
The Korean plant is building Engel's tie-barless Victory press, a modular machine with a common global platform that replaces the Engel HL machine. Initially, the plant serves as a final assembly operation, as Engel imports all major subassemblies and components from Austria. But large castings already are being machined in the Pyongtaek factory.
Engel wants to increase the local content of the machines in Korea gradually. About half the presses built there will go to Korean molders and the other half will be shipped to other Asian nations.
Ultimately, Engel said the factory should be able to build 500-700 injection molding machines a year.
HPM names reps for single-screw units
MOUNT GILEAD, OHIO - The HPM Division of Taylor's Industrial Services LLC has named the following manufacturers' representatives for its single-screw extrusion equipment:
* Bear Machinery Sales of Orland Park, Ill., covering Illinois and Wisconsin.
* Majer Plastics of Mansfield, Ohio, to handle Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
* Pacific Plastic Machinery Inc. of San Anselmo, Calif., for northern California, northern Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
* Hamilton-Avtec of Mississauga, Ontario, to cover Canada.
* PlastiMatix of Farmington Hills, Mich., selling to Michigan.
* Best Plastic Machinery Inc. of Dallas covering Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
HPM is based in Mount Gilead.
Briefly ...
* The Plagate valve gate system from Fisa Corp. of Shelbyville, Tenn., has been recommended for use with the MuCell molding process from Trexel Inc. of Woburn, Mass., both companies announced. ... Swiss injection press maker Netstal-Maschinen AG shipped a SynErgy 6000 press, with 660 tons of clamping force, to custom molder Kunststoff Schwanden AG of Schwanden, Switzerland, in early February.
