PIPE DIES | MACHINERY
Clean living: getting the most from your extrusion tooling
Tooling maintenance improves extrusion efficiency, enhances quality and boosts overall productivity for tubing applications, says Glenn Guillemette
Like racing cars stuck in the pit lane, many extru- sion machines spend time sitting idle because of poor or damaged tooling. Some machines start up quickly – but make scrap – while others make an oversized product in order to hold minimum tolerance: they waste 10-20% of the material, which equates to 50-90% of the product cost. Together, these overheads can lead to big losses. Tooling suppliers go to great lengths to ensure tips and dies are machined to a determined specification, ensuring perfect concentricity and alignment to give efficient material distribution. This effort is all for nothing if tools are poorly maintained. Machining tolerances are held extremely close
on products such as multi-lumen and multi-layer medical tubing. Any tool misalignment may be exaggerated in the final product output. To work at maximum efficiency, these tools must be properly cleaned, stored and repaired. Clean parts – especially with sealing and locating surfaces – are key to product performance. These surfaces receive the most care and attention during manufacturing and ensure uniformity throughout the tubing. Precision-machined alignments are affected by even a speck of dirt measuring only a few thousandths of an inch – and since there are many such surfaces in a quality tool, cleanliness is critical. Foreign matter is often introduced when the
head is disassembled. At this point, residual materials must be thoroughly removed. Physical tool damage often occurs here too, due to mishan- dling and poor storage techniques. While these are precision parts, they can be heavy and bulky to remove by hand. Use of a dedicated work cart for
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extruder head maintenance is recommended. This, along with a supply of spare components and hardware is easily justified, especially when examining the potential cost savings that result from well-maintained tools.
Cleaning tips Clean parts are critical to extrusion tooling perfor- mance and quality manufacturing. This is especially true for the sealing and locating surfaces that control uniformity of the production process. For general maintenance – before storage or changeover – a thorough cleaning and removal of the excess material maintains the precision machining alignments that are required to produce end products to precise tolerances. Equipment should be cleaned while it is still hot,
since residual polymer and rubber will be easier to remove. Follow all MSDS recommendations when heating the tooling. Thermal gloves are used to protect the hands from the heated tooling surfaces. A brass scraper, as well as a brass or copper wool cleaning cloth, are recommended because they are soft enough not to scratch the tool surface. The quickest way to remove the die is to use the
May 2018 | PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION 13
Main image: Tooling is machined to exact specifica- tions to ensure concentricity and alignment, but this is for nothing if tools are poorly maintained
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