5 Rules of Processing

To put it bluntly, if your technicians and engineers are not following these 5 simple rules your company is losing money. Rule 1: Change One Aspect at at Time By allowing the change to take place, it allows you to be deliberate in your changes. Rule 2: Make Significant Changes If you believe something is […]

Quick Note on Safety with PVC & Acetal

For some reason we are encountering a large number of companies who’s employees are not familiar with extremely important safety concerns of running both PVC and Acetal (POM) in the same plant. Concern: Heated PVC gives off hydrochloric acid while heated, this acid will erode most metal surfaces that are not stainless or plated with […]

Testing Volumetric Feed Systems

Don’t assume that when you are getting consistent feed with your volumetric feed system as this needs to be tested. Situation: A customer was having significant issues with a PVC twin screw profile extrusion line where the line would break often during production without any obvious cause as well as provide profiles which would vary […]

Using Process Monitoring Systems

Process monitoring systems are a great resource for the Scientific Molder. Question: We already have a {brand-name} production monitoring system and are now considering using it to also monitor the process. My Response: In practice most companies use such systems helpful to look for individual short shots or analysis of past problems. This is essentially […]

Colorant Mixing Issues

In a recent processing forum there was a common question regarding color swirls and colorant mixing. There were many common responses such as adding back pressure, speeding up screw speed, slowing down screw speed, changing screws, adding mixing elements, etc. Let’s get back to basics for a moment… RE Colorants: The aspect particular to colorants […]