Sandretto UK & Ireland supply Injection Moulding Machines, robots and ancillary equipment for use within the building industry. More specifically within this arena, Sandretto supply machinery to numerous pipe fittings manufacturers.
Click on any of our stories below to read more about how our clients make use of Sandretto products:
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.
Back to Top
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.
Back to Top
|
