PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2011

PREFORM PRODUCTION 22 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 01+02/11 www.petpla.net New player in the preform tooling firmament There is not a machine manufacturer on the planet that has not made some attempt to erode Husky’s position as a market leader on the preform scene, but so far not one company has succeeded. In the medium and high perfor- mance range there has been no getting past this Canadian company. Only Netstal, Krauss-Maffei, Sipa and Sumitomo have managed to make any noteworthy inroads at all in this performance range. It is only in the preform tooling sector that one or two suppliers have managed to establish them- selves. And this is precisely where a counter-reaction is now becoming discernible. As far as hot runner business is con- cerned, Husky and Mold-Masters have always been rivals, now Mold-Masters have put a complete preform system for 2011 on show at the K Fair to compete in the preform tool- ing sector as well. We spoke with Bruce Catoen, VP Product and Business Development for Mold-Masters. PETplanet: Bruce, at the most recent fairs you have expanded your preform program step by step, first of all at the NPE 2009 by presenting a hot side for preform tools, then, in September 2009, it was your col- laboration with Abba and with that the idea of supplying complete tools. Now, at the K Fair, it’s the acquisi- tion of Abba and the introduction of an all electric work cell and a quick change tooling system. results that are clearly better. And hopefully, in the long term, they will come to regard us as turnkey manu- facturers of tools as well. Naturally, we are also looking forward to supplying complete tools. PETplanet: Why should your hot sides be better than those of your competitors? Bruce Catoen: All our competitors drill holes in steel. This means that no curves are possible. In this conven- tional approach various holes need to be drilled from different sides and plugged to prevent leakage. Depend- ing on the system, this can result in dead spots in which material may accumulate and the sharp bends result in additional shear and stress on the moulding material. The results are increased injection pressure, uneven viscosity of the material and with this increased AA content and degradation. With our patented iFlow mani- fold design we can mill any geometry – including drawn-out curves – on two steel plates. We then fuse them together like 2 halves of a sandwich using a proprietary technique. This means that we are able to guarantee the same length of flow path and shear history for each mould cavity with- out any sharp corners or edges. The machine is able to fill the mould faster with significantly less injection pres- sure. The parts are filled more evenly resulting in a more even weight distri- bution and shrinkage. PETplanet: And you have acquired the iCool stack technology from Abba? Bruce Catoen: The iCool technol- ogy was developed as a joint effort between ABBA and Mold-Masters. The fundamental designs are based on a series of patents from Jobst Gellert, the founder of Mold-Masters. Using conformal cooling technology and proprietary manufacturing tech- niques we have been able to ensure more efficient routing of the cooling channels close to a mould cavity. Bruce Catoen, VP Product and Busi- ness Develoment, Mold-Masters Bruce Catoen: Yes, we thought originally that we could enable toolmakers to compete with Husky by supplying a leading edge hot runner solution using iFlow manifold technology. However, there were very few tool-makers interested in competing with Husky in this market. So we changed our approach and became preform toolmakers our- selves. Using our patented confor- mal cooling technologies, called iCool, we developed a complete mould solution for preform mould- ing. Then in September 2010 we purchased our stack supplier, Abba Systems, so that the customer can look forward to getting a 100% Mold- Masters tool under the brand name MPET. PETplanet: How do you plan to bring your system closer to your cus- tomers? Bruce Catoen: In stages. We know that there are a very large number of tools out there in the mar- ketplace. Here, for example, we are offering to replace the hot side only, so the customers will be able to see that, with the same machine and the same preform, we are achieving