Know-How

Extrusion

Water, Oil, Air, or None?

There is no one 'best' barrel cooling medium, but there seems to be a shift in the industry toward air cooling.

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Getting Good Data from DOE

How do you know what process variables control a part鈥檚 dimensions or other properties? A properly conducted DOE is the answer鈥攂ut incorrect procedure will yield useless data.

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Working with Color Concentrates

Industry needs more development of enhanced-mixing screws.

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Know-How

Review Mold Requirements Before Buying a Press

If you are in the market for a new blow molding press, best to first review all the different types of molds you might be running in that  machine.

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Extrusion

Well, It Worked on Brand X

You need to give your designer a lot more data than that to make sure you get a screw that's right for you.

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best practices

Improve Profits by Graphing Injection Pressure

Graphing is a powerful aid in optimizing the process and troubleshooting both process and machine issues.

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color

Working with Color Concentrates

Perhaps the greatest difficulty involving the use of color concentrates is specifying them appropriately for the material to which they are being added.

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Tooling Know-How

Safety Sense in the Shop

Running a clean, organized, professional, and safe shop requires a team effort that includes an awareness of unsafe practices and equipment that need to be eliminated, replaced, or improved, along with the accountability of all to identify and document safety issues.

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Extrusion

‘Wedging’ Can Cause Severe Screw Wear

In a column I wrote for the July 2011 issue, I discussed the value of conducting “forensic” examination of worn screws when they are removed for clues to design flaws.

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What to Calibrate on Your Press

There are different approaches to meeting the goal of making parts identically. At the heart of all them is the process or the machine setup sheet. My bet would be you cannot find two that are identical.

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