Graham Engineering Commercializes Next Generation Wheel Technology

YORK, PA--(Marketwire - Jul 16, 2012) - Graham Engineering Corporation (GEC), the York, PA, USA-based manufacturer of extrusion blow molding equipment, has commercialized the first in its series of "next generation" rotary wheel machines. Christened the "HS Series," this new line of wheel machines with two-ton clamping stations is designed to process lightweight bottles, such as dairy, juice or yogurt containers, at speeds of up to 12 RPM.

GEC has built wheel machines since 1968, the bulk of its history as a stable, family owned company. GEC rotary wheels are renowned globally for many years of reliable service. The company estimates that well over 90 percent of all wheel machines are still producing today.

While the technology around the wheel machines has changed (items such as controls, takeout systems, and downstream equipment), the rotating "spool" of GEC wheels has remained fairly constant until now. GEC has begun delivering wheels with a breakthrough design concept that provides significant advances in flexibility, commonality of components, and faster job changeovers when compared to existing wheel machinery.

According to David Yenor, Vice President of Business Development, "For many years there was very little impetus to change our 'tried and true' spool design. This has always been the standard by which wheel machines have been compared. But a few years ago, we started focusing our R&D efforts on improving our approach to manufacturing our rotary systems. The result is that we have developed significant advancements in our approach to the wheel construction, especially in the flexibility to modify the number of machine clamping stations if a configuration change is desired in the future."

By changing out a few parts, processors can add or reduce the number of clamp stations. This flexibility allows bottle producers to redeploy their machine -- cavitation or mold sizes are more readily adjustable if the product mix changes over time.

Yenor touts several other advantages of the new GEC wheel design: a range of 16 to 20 stations; improved access inside the spool area for easier maintenance; commonality of pre-built clamp stations for each tonnage, regardless of the number of stations per machine; greater mold close time in some configurations, leading to faster cycle times; and reduced lead times to build machines.

Even with these changes, the next generation wheel machines use proven Graham Engineering approaches, such as cam-driven mold opening and closing action, platens that slide on guide rods, strong linkages and bearings, and spring stacks for clamp force adjustment.

The "HS Series" is a forerunner to Graham's "G-Series," a stronger 6-ton high-speed rotary wheel machine. This series features two sizes of machines, with a wider range of 12 to 26 clamping stations. These "G Series" wheels add additional range to the Graham product lineup. Again, a key feature of this series is greater flexibility. By changing out a few parts, processors can add or reduce clamp stations; thus cavitation or mold sizes are adjustable if the product mix changes over time.

About Graham Engineering Corporation: Graham Engineering has benefitted from over 50 years of stable, family-owned operation. Its core business is the manufacture and sale of high-speed plastics processing machinery, primarily for the packaging industry.

Graham Engineering offers a complete line of monolayer and multilayer extrusion blow molding equipment: shuttle machines up to 10 L capacity; reciprocating screw and shot pot machinery for lightweight HDPE containers; multi-cavity, single and dual parison, rotary wheel blow molders for up to 30 L packaging applications; single and dual head accumulator machinery from 5 to 50 lbs (3 to 30 liters) capacity, and multi-parison shot pot technology for smaller industrial applications.

For more information, contact: Graham Engineering Corporation, 1203 Eden Road, York, PA USA 17402-0673, Phone +1-717-848-3755, Fax: +1-717-846-1931, www.grahamengineering.com, e-mail: sales@grahamengineering.com.