Strictly-Extrusion

Kroy Building Products of York, USA, a manufacturer of vinyl fences, decks, railings, pergolas and specialty building products, is expanding with the purchase of a manufacturing facility in Fair Bluff, N.C., and the addition of a sales and marketing office in Raleigh, N.C. It is said that the new Raleigh office will greatly enhance the company’s ability to respond to the needs of customers, distributors and dealers throughout the East of the U.S. Kroy’s new 200,000-sq-ft facility had been operated by Owens Corning for the production of vinyl siding until April 2000. Kroy purchased the site and is converting it to manufacture its lines of vinyl building products. The company began production at the facility at the end of February and plans to bring the plant completely on-line by early April.

Leading extrusion die maker Cloeren Inc. of Orange, Texas, will move into a larger headquarters facility in downtown Orange in early May. The extra square footage will help accommodate growth and provide the space to combine the company’s engineering functions into one location, according to the company. Cloeren will occupy half of the 55,000-sq-ft building and the remainder will be developed as professional space.

Owens Corning announced it will sell nearly all of its Engineered Pipe Systems (EPS) business to Saudi Arabian Amiantit Co., a joint stock firm headquartered in Damman, Saudi Arabia. Engineered Pipe Systems manufactures large-diameter glass-reinforced pipe for water and wastewater. Amiantit is a worldwide manufacturer of many pipe technologies, including glass-reinforced types. The two companies have been joint venture partners since 1977.

A new pelletized, high-density purging compound from Blackbrook Chemicals Ltd.is said to work on all types of plastics-processing equipment. New HD-Purge is environmentally friendly and non toxic, according to the company. It is based on new chemistry that eliminates the ammonia smell associated with many other purging compounds. The compound contains HDPE plus inert minerals and both inorganic and organic salts. The material is economically priced at $1.99/lb.

GE Plastics, USA has purchased the polycarbonate extrusion assets of Matra Plast Industries, a PC sheet maker based in Long Sault, Ontario. Matra Plast operates a 250,000-square-foot plant in Long Sault, where it employs 63 people. Its sheet products are sold under the Verolite and Vistar brand names.

BP bought the worldwide rights to the hot compaction technology invented at the University of Leeds and developed by Vantage Polymers, which now continues as a research company. Hot compaction makes so-called ’self-reinforcing’ thermoformable polypropylene sheets by partially melting bundles of fibres and pressing them so that the molten material fuses to form a sheet retaining the alignment of the original fibres. This gives the sheet toughness and rigidity comparable with carbon and glass fibre-reinforced materials, but at lower weight and with the benefit of full recyclability.

Xaloy Inc., USA has started to build a U$3,5-million plant in Seabrook, N.H., to house its growing screw-manufacturing operations and a new Plastification Technology Center (PTC). The plant will have an area of 38,000 sq ft, about 70 per cent larger than the company’s existing screw facility. The latter plant will close after the new facility starts up.
The PTC will contain injection molding, extrusion and other types of processing equipment.

According to a new market report from Principia Partners in the U.S. , the next five years will more than double last year’s 700 million lb of polymer-wood composites produced in North America. Applications for polymer-wood composites include docks and boardwalks, constitute over 60% of the market. But these composites represent only a tiny share of more than 2 billion board ft of all materials used annually in decks and railings. The study “Wood Composites in Decking Structures- 2001: Building of Outdoor Living Areas,” will be published in February. For more information, visit the website : www.principiaconsulting.com.

The new software Web Ranger is said to increase greatly the performance of line-scan cameras for web inspection made by Wintriss Engineering Corp., USA. Wintriss’s high-resolution OPSIS 5150ALC smart camera has a built in PC for real-time inspection. With Web Ranger, it now can also continuously classify and count defects like streaks, pin holes or blisters. Later Web Ranger will add print inspection as well. The high-speed inspection system, with ethernet connectivity for multiple cameras, operates at up to 1600 ft/min with 0,5-mm resolution.

Eccotech, Germany has taken on representation of a new reversible flow screenchanger system made by Revoscreen in the Netherlands. Instead of conventional longitudinal screen packs, the new patented Revoscreen- System has a radial filter system consisting of 6 filter cartridges. According to the company the new filter system can be operated up to 6 weeks without interruption.