PTI commissions sheet line for China
AURORA, ILL. - Processing Technologies Inc. of Aurora recently commissioned an acrylic sheet extrusion line to make lenticular sheet for billboards in China.
The line will make lenticular sheet in panels measuring 48 inches by 96 inches. China's largest producer of distilled spirits will use the sheet for outdoor advertising.
Lenticular sheet is created using special patterned chrome rolls, which are precisely ground to create geometric grooves that form the lens patterns. Those patterns are transferred into the sheet when the polymer is extruded into the nip point between the lens roll and the mating chrome roll.
The sheet provides a three-dimensional and hologram effect.
The customer picked acrylic for this billboard because of its ultraviolet exposure, but PTI said lenticular sheet also is often made from PET and glycol-modified PET.
PTI assembled and tested the system before shipping it to Cheng Du, China. The line consists of a water-cooled extruder with a screw diameter of 5 inches and a length-to-diameter ratio of 32-1. The sheet take-off system was specially configured for making the thick sheet, and it features PTI's Revolution series roll stand, which has 18- by 60-inch rolls that are independently driven using a proprietary distributed gear reduction, close coupled to flexible drive shafts.
The line also has electric circular saws for edge trimming. A traveling circular saw cuts the sheet to length.
Japanese supplier moves into Ill. site
GLENDALE HEIGHTS, ILL. - Japanese hot-runner supplier Seiki Co. Ltd. has moved into Mitsui Plastics Inc.'s 43,500-square-foot mold-making facility in Glendale Heights, near Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
Seiki developed the Spear System. Dual-heater probes operate similar to a valve gate, but use a Gate Melt-Freeze process.
By using MPI's Glendale Heights operation, Seiki said it now will have direct control over design, building and testing of its hot halves.
Seiki is based in Yonezawa, Japan.
Mitsui Plastics was established in 1988 as a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Mitsui & Co. Ltd., a large Japanese conglomerate.
Silver Line acquires CDS downstream line
LACHINE, QUEBEC - Custom Downstream Systems Inc. said it sold downstream extrusion equipment to vinyl window extruder Silver Line Building Products Corp. and Vinyl Visions LLC, which extrudes railing and fence.
CDS said Silver Line, based in North Brunswick, N.J., ordered five of its dual downstream lines and two regular downstream lines. Vinyl Visions of Wilmington, Ohio, bought two dual line systems.
CDS touts its dual downstream lines, which can run two profiles or pipes simultaneously. The equipment includes dual vacuum calibration tables, dual cleated haul-offs, dual traveling cutoff saws and dual tilt tables. Each side of the line can be configured and run independently of the other.
Custom Downstream Systems held an open house at its plant in Lachine in February.
Vetaphone increases work in U.S. market
CHICAGO - Vetaphone A/S the maker of corona-discharge treatment equipment in Kolding, Denmark, is increasing its activities in the U.S. market.
Vetaphone already had an office in Chicago. Now the company is working with Kroenert Corp. of Kenosha, Wis., and Matik North America of West Hartford, Conn.
Matik will represent Vetaphone's Corona-Plus narrow web equipment. Kroenert, which supplies coating and laminating systems for flexible webs, will handle Corona-Plus for larger web widths.
Briefly ...
* Specialty Blades Inc. of Staunton, Va., has acquired the blade business of Ceramic Technologies in Houston. The purchase complements Specialty Blades' Endurium brand of slitting blades for the plastic film sector.
