Sandretto supplies injection moulding machines, robots and ancillaries for use within
the building and construction arena. Sandretto products are using for manufacturing
products such as rainwater pipes and cellular foam systems.
Click on any of the case studies below to read more about how our clients make use of Sandretto products:
Cork Plastics
TWO ‘PVC-SPEC’ SANDRETTOS INCREASE MOULDING CAPACITY FOR MAJOR IRISH EXTRUSION COMPANY
One of Ireland’s maj\or extruders of pipe, rainwater and co-extruded cellular foam systems, as well as window profiles and other building products, has extended its moulding capacity with the addition of two Sandretto injection moulding machines. Both are equipped with the full specification for moulding rigid PVC and both incorporate Sandretto’s new, variable pump displacement technology for low energy consumption.
Cork Plastics was set up in 1969 to extrude, primarily, pipe for the building and agricultural industries. Within ten years the company had installed its first moulding machine. It remained necessary, however, for the company to buy in moulded fittings, particularly for the larger diameter pipe and in order that it could develop new markets.
Now, with the Sandretto Serie NOVE T 500 tonne and the Serie NOVE S 320 tonne, installed in January 2003, Cork Plastics has become, in the words of Technical/Engineering Manager Mark O’Mahoney, considerably more flexible for supplying both its home and overseas markets. The company extrudes pipe up to 315 mm diameter and, together with fittings for pipe up to 4 inch (110 mm) diameter, moulds the fittings and accessories for all of its other systems.
NEED FOR VERY LARGE PLATEN SIZES
The desire to satisfy more of the order intake from its own factory necessitated the purchase of more moulding machinery. Mark O’Mahoney explains that the need was not so much for large clamp tonnage but for larger platen area. “A 4 inch socket branch, for example, has three substantial cores at 120? to each other. This type of mould tool requires a large platen relative to the necessary clamp force.”
The Sandretto NOVE T 500 has a very large platen area – 1300 mm square – for its size, measured in both clamp tonnage and overall dimensions.
SPECIFICATION FOR MOULDING PVC
For its machines, which are to process rigid PVC, Sandretto supplies a special screw and barrel assembly. The one-piece screw, with a low compression profile to counteract the overheating created by high shear, has an integral smear tip. As a further aid to reducing heat build-up, the barrel is fitted with cooling fans, which cut in automatically. To resist the corrosive action of PVC, the screw is chrome plated. In addition, Sandretto supplied barrel and screw assemblies enabling Cork Plastics to process polypropylene on both of the new machines.
Similar precautions are taken with components around the purging area; the carriage blocks and the nozzle purge guard, for example, are either chrome plated or manufactured from stainless steel.
Cork Plastics took considerable care over the selection of machine, commencing with a visit to Interplas in October 2002 and subsequently taking some of the company’s specialists to observe machine demonstrations.
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Tex Industrial Plastics
TEX CONCLUDES NEW ‘MEGA’ DEAL
A Sandretto ‘MEGA TW’ 610 tonne injection moulding machine has recently been installed in the newly opened Derby factory of Tex Industrial Plastics. Supplied as a complete cell with hopper loader, Nepal S3 all-electric drive de-mould robot and indexing conveyor, the new machine is to be used primarily for producing parts for Heatrae Sadia’s ‘Megaflo’ domestic, unvented water heating system.
Tex Industrial Plastics employs what Managing Director Peter Stevenson describes as “a real partnership approach” with its major customers. Typical is Heatrae Sadia for which Tex has been moulding a range of parts for many years. Post-moulding work includes printing, ultrasonic welding, sub-assembly and packaging.
Part of the Tex Holdings plc group of companies which also includes Tex Plastics Products in Barnstaple, Tex Industrial Plastics made further extensions to its Derby factory earlier this year to accommodate an 11% business expansion.
The company has operated Sandretto injection machines for over 20 years; four years ago, Tex Derby took the opportunity of a move into an earlier plant extension to introduce cell production techniques when it installed Sandretto 270 tonne and 380 tonne Series 8 injection machines. Investment continued with a new Serie NOVE 125 tonne machine.
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Centurion Safety Products
NEW SANDRETTO IN EXTENDED MANUFACTURING FACILITY PRODUCING CENTURION SAFETY HELMETS AT THETFORD
A leading designer and manufacturer of industrial safety helmets and associated equipment, Centurion Safety Products of Thetford is expanding its production capacity to meet increasing demand for its range of industrial safety helmets, including the award-winning new Vision safety helmet.
Christmas 2002 saw the installation of a new Sandretto Serie NOVE 220 tonne injection moulding machine. The Christmas shut-down enabled the company to complete a major re-arrangement of its manufacturing operation. This involved movement of the full complement of 16 moulding machines and the extensive assembly lines.
SUCCESS BY DESIGN
The continuing success of the company, established 120 years ago, has always been on the basis of good design. In 2001 this was demonstrated by its new Centurion Vision industrial safety helmet winning the Safety & Health Expo Product Innovation Award. Successful against a competitive field of entrants, the Centurion ABS Vision safety helmet is the first in its class to feature a custom-built visor which retracts fully inside the helmet shell whilst permitting the user to wear standard prescription spectacles.
Centurion’s in-house design team is supported by a moulding department running 24 hours per day, extensive testing and laboratory facilities and a substantial assembly operation which is becoming increasingly mechanised.
AUTOMATION
Mouldings are automatically conveyed to the assembly stations for final assembly. We see far more benefit from taking finished mouldings to the operators than having operators on or near the moulding machines states Operations Director Fred Baker.
It should be explained that the product range includes hearing and face protection, helmet options such as lamp brackets and the Martindale respiratory protection products. Centurion’s safety helmets meet the requirements of environments as varied as welding, shipyards, the steel industry, quarrying, cash-in-transit and demolition. Included are a GRP helmet for high temperature resistance (up to 500C) and even a baseball ‘bump’ cap providing protection within a fashionable and comfortable item of workwear.
The extra Sandretto injection machine and the new factory layout, together, provide a much needed increase in production capacity. The new building, completed in October, had already enabled much of the assembly lines to be re-located. Over the Christmas shut-down the moulding machines were all moved and re-aligned. Helmet assembly lines and all supporting conveyors also required re-positioning for production to recommence at the start of the New Year.
MANUFACTURING TO ORDER
Centurion, which employs around 100 people, has developed a manufacturing system in which all the latest tool design methods are employed. It sells through a distributor chain operating throughout the UK and in overseas markets.
“RELIABILITY”
Fred Baker does stress the point that moulding machines have to be reliable. “You can’t afford a breakdown when you manufacture to order.” Fred joined Centurion about 12 years ago and inherited a predominantly Sandretto moulding shop. “Machine performance and, in particular, the service we get from Rugby, have given me no reason to change this.”
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Daton Tools
DATON TOOLS DESIGNS AND DELIVERS TOOLS FOR OVERMOULDING - IN EIGHT WEEKS, REGULARLY
As a toolmaker, Daton Tools of Welwyn Garden City consistently proves itself as a more-than-capable contract moulder. Conversely, for a small trade moulder now operating five Sandretto machines from 50 tonnes to 200 tonnes clamp, the company has a remarkably well equipped toolroom with wire-eroding and CNC machining centres, all supported by full CAD technology.
What is particularly significant, states Managing Director Geoff Taylor, is that this toolroom regularly proves wrong the oft-made claims that British toolmakers cannot match the quality, even less, the delivery times offered by overseas companies.
He cites one example after another of six-week and eight-week delivery times for mould tools which, almost without exception, are complex. Most recent example is a suite of six tools for a Prada consumer device designed by IDEO. Ranging from a single-cavity tool for the 180 mm x 80 mm x 35 mm main body moulding, to a 7-cavity family tool for items as small as 4 mm diameter, all six moulds were completed in less than eight weeks from completion of the component drawings. The main body mould tool was completed in six weeks.
ESTABLISHING A REPUTATION
Although its roots as a toolmaker go back 35 years, Daton Tools functioned for some of this time as part of larger organisations until 1998 when it was re-formed under Geoff Taylor and Technical Director Graeme Inge. Together they succeeded in winning back old customers, notably in the field of overmoulding where Geoff was already establishing a reputation for what remains a specialist process.
“SOUND PARTNERSHIP”
The Prada project quoted above is consequently something of an exception as a new project as it can be described as a conventional plastics moulding. It is, however, extremely complex and has to be moulded to within very tight tolerances for which Geoff Taylor relies substantially on his five Sandretto moulding machines. “I’d used Sandretto before we formed Daton Tools and it was an obvious move to specify them in the new factory.
“As far as I’m concerned Daton and Sandretto has become a sound partnership. They’ve never let us down – there’s an engineer here if we need one and we can always rely on first class assistance at Rugby when required.”
QUALITY AND TIGHT TOLERANCES
Overmoulding carried out by Daton Tools is always a two- or even three-part process. Small call-off numbers do not justify the investment in a two- or three-shot moulding machine, states Graeme Inge who maintains that the over-moulding process is ideal to maintain the quality and tight tolerances on the one-piece parts demanded by customers such as Blue Arc, Desoutter and IDEO.
Typical of their work is the range of acrylic lenses moulded in to components such as baby monitors used in hospitals, instrument enclosures for earth-moving vehicles and ocean-going yachts and hand-held industrial data-gathering equipment. All require a guaranteed moisture, oil or weather seal provided by the bond between the acrylic lens and the, typically, ABS or PC/ABS body moulding. Earlier development work has enabled Daton Tools to refine a process which overcomes the inability of techniques such as gluing or welding to create the necessary complete seal.
At the small end of the scale, in a four-cavity mould, Daton produces 5 mm diameter seals comprising a polypropylene core (for flexibility) with a PBT outer to provide the necessary rigidity.
“Materials with different properties inevitably induce stresses, so it’s still not an exact science” states Graeme Inge. However, the regular business of the company is to overmould rubber elastomers and polyurethanes successfully over materials such as nylon, PTB and PC/ABS.
THREE-PART MOULDING PROCESS
All of the suite of tools to produce the Automotive Sander for Desoutter are particularly complex. First, the main body is moulded from glass-filled nylon and then inserted, with threaded inserts, into a second tool and over-moulded with Hytrel.
Other air tool mouldings for Desoutter are manufactured by the elastomeric overmoulding of precision turned or CNC machined aluminium cores. This is where careful mould design is essential to maintain a perfect shut-off between the elastomer and the substrate within the required, confined area.
Specification of a soft-feel elastomer as an overmoulding on these applications is to provide comfort and vibration reduction for the operator and insulation against the effects of the inherently cold compressed air. (Two sentences deleted)
This is one reason why Daton Tools identifies its CAD-based mould design capabilities as a prime reason for remaining busy in a market which is becoming “frighteningly” competitive. The second reason, already mentioned, is short delivery times. Part of a joint development project, completion of the Desoutter mould tools took less than eight weeks from acceptance of the part drawings.
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Fusion
FINDING THE FORMULA THAT FITS
Recently celebrating the 25th anniversary, Chesterfield, UK based Fusion Group has played a key role in permitting the dramatic growth which polyethylene pipe has achieved in water and gas distribution.
From small beginnings, the company’s £30m plus turnover this year reflects the success of a formula, which provides employment for some 600 people.
As its name implies, Fusion specialise in methods of joining plastic pipes, a vital aspect of the plastics systems which dominate the world of water and gas transmission which lies beneath the nation’s feet.
And the company’s story is very much one of a far seeing entrepreneur and his ability to develop technology that the pipe industry has come to reply on. The recent installation of new injection moulding equipment from Sandretto, with the expectation of more to come, confirms that Fusion is determined to push ahead with investment programmes which will underpin, even more firmly, its role in the industry.
The story of Fusion founder Eric Bridgstock is inextricably linked with that of the growth in the use of polyethylene gas pipe in the UK. For it was while employed by DuPont Canada selling the famous Aldyl system that the Fuel Science graduate from Sheffield University first responded to the challenge which would change his life.
Initially covering the Canadian market, Bridgstock was subsequently asked by the group to pioneer the system in the UK market. Indeed, the decision to site the Aldyl factory close to the M1 at Hilcote in Derbyshire was partly in his court.
It was seeking the solution to the problems of joining the pipe that led to Bridgstock linking up with former colleagues from time he had spent at East Midlands Gas in a former cutlery factory in Sheffield.
For the first third of its existence, Fusion specialised in the manufacture of equipment for butt welding of pipe; a specialist fusion service was established and some diversification took place.
When British Gas began to show an interest in electrofusion as a means of joining pipe, the bell could have tolled for Fusion, committed as it was to the hot iron fusion method. Bridgstock and his team embraced the new technology in the late 1970’s with what was to evolve as a two-track strategy.
On the one hand, the company designed control boxes to be used with imported electrofusion fittings. This equipment approach evolved into the user friendly Fusamatic system, which removes the operator’s scope for error by providing a link with a control system in which the variables of time, for example, are entered and carried out. This approach remain a cornerstone of Fusion’s position and has been licensed to eight overseas users, winning significant business in Japan, a success accelerated following the Kobe earthquake.
But at the same time, the company also entered the highly competitive world of plastic fittings which incorporate the electrical coil that provides the current to melt the PE. This is a complex manufacturing process on which Fusion now deploys more than 30 machine at the 16 acre Sheepbridge site on which the firm settled in 1989.
With it’s recent investment in Sandretto equipment of up to 750 tonnes, Fusion is recognising the imperatives of keeping up to date with the latest moulding, winding and loading technologies. Today the plastics operation accounts for more than half of the Fusion Group’s turnover turning out fittings for pipe diameter ranging from 20 to 355mm.
Mike Skeemer, product manager for Plastic Products, points to the two way partnership which Fusion has established with Sandretto. ‘The machines represent the best value for money that we can buy’, he told PRW at Chesterfield. In recent years, the arrival of four further Sandretto machines illustrates Fusion’s latest investment.
Meanwhile, Fusion has also been enjoying success both internationally and with third party customers for it’s extensive toolmaking operation. Other bolt on activities for the group have taken it into a variety of other markets including polyethylene fish farm systems and most recently, boats.
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AAC Structural Foam
SANDRETTO 1300 TONNE INJECTION MACHINE IS THE LATEST ADDITION AT AAC STRUCTURAL FOAM. NEW, LEAN MANAGEMENT STYLE BRINGS PROFIT BACK TO TAMWORTH SITE
Delivery of this Sandretto 1300 tonne machine, complete with de-mould CNC robot, to a factory in Tamworth brings to eleven the number of injection moulding machines operated by AAC Structural Foam. Occupying the site previously owned by Tamworth Plastics, this 2½-year old custom moulder is on course to equal the turnover of its predecessor with less than half the number of moulding machines and with 25 on the pay roll compared with more than 90.
It is not, however, solely in the production area where massive changes have taken place; if first impressions count, then the minimalist but extremely well appointed customer reception suite might score even higher.
NEW LIFE AND PROFIT FOR TAMWORTH
After leaving Britton Plastics, Mike Elms purchased the defunct Tamworth Plastics and set up AAC Structural Foam. This was a joint exercise with André Elshout of the Elco International Group which, between them, turn over in excess of £20M operating a range of predominantly plastics manufacturing companies across the Midlands, from Nottingham to Banbury and from Leicester to Walsall.
First step was to appoint, as General Manager, Ray Waspe who brought with him extensive moulding and management skills from companies such as Thurge Bolle, Britton Plastics and Linpac. He worked with Mike Elms to identify the profitable work as well as the better and more suitable moulding machines to meet the new company’s business plan. From £4½ M, this exercise reduced turnover to a profitable and sustainable £1M; at the same time all but five of the 26 moulding machines were sold.
DIVERSE SKILLS, IN SPITE OF NAME
Machinery remaining was large, from 650 tonnes lock upwards, producing traffic furniture, air conditioning assemblies and components for the automotive and building industries. The name AAC Structural Foam identifies particular skills offered by the company, a typical example being a large inspection hatch-and-cover assembly designed to be set into a roadway.
Subsequent machines purchased – such as the Sandretto Mega T 750 tonne – were equipped specifically for structural foam moulding; in this case, a 7 kg capacity barrel was supplied. The aim is to seek long run contracts, but flexibility is essential; all of the large injection machines, now numbering seven, are capable of both conventional and structural foam moulding.
CONTINUING, LARGE INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
The massive programme of investment, commencing almost from day one, continues. Half-way into its third year and £½M has already been invested in machinery, robots and cranage.
Necessary for handling the very large mould tools, a 40 tonne gantry crane has been installed, running the full length of the moulding shop. A similar 20 tonne gantry crane is currently being installed at the far end of the mould shop, to cover four much smaller machines – two 150 tonne Sandrettos and two 95 tonne.
BROADENING MANUFACTURING BASE
An important part of the company’s plan is to continue building on the profitable base of producing very large mouldings. Mike Elms has, however, identified another, quite different area into which the new company could move.
To this end Moira UK was purchased for its expertise in producing and assembling components under clean room conditions. The four small Sandrettos, all having close-fitted covers, are aligned side-by-side, feeding parts on totally enclosed conveyors into a purpose-built clean room. With full FDA approval for this installation, AAC Structural Foam has improved on Moira’s reputation and is supplying a range of assemblies to the food packaging industry.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
With one of the leanest management structures in the business of custom moulding, AAC Structural Foam is, nevertheless, well equipped to offer a “comprehensive design and project management service” to customers. So states Ray Waspe who explains that he can call upon expertise such as design and mould making from the various sister companies within the Elco International Group. He can turn to other injection moulding companies as well as being able to extend the “package” by calling on skills such as vacuum forming and the design and production of display products from MDF. A number of examples, on display in one of the larger rooms leading off the reception hall, demonstrate the effectiveness of this facility.
AAC Structural Foam is extremely focused in its approach; it is busy and profitable, as are its sister companies. Ray Waspe finds that they approach him for his skills almost as much as he does them for what they can offer.
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