A plant to produce abrasives is basically made of a combination of several stations forming a called “roll to roll” line as follows:

• An unwinding unit
• A printing unit
• A make coater for the first bond
• A series of pneumatic cylinders
• One or more abrasive strewing units
• A first drying system
• A size coater for the second bond
• A second drying system
• A final winding machine

The above mentioned stations can show different features all depending on the purchaser’s technical requirements, for instance:

• Variety of the products to be manufactured
• Production capacity for each working shift
• Useful rolls width
• Working effectiveness
• Available surface for the facility
• Power sources for heating the air in the dryers
• Characteristics of the markets where the company wants to operate and its orientation
• Financial assets
• Possibility to increase production capacity
• Suitable know-how

From the entire above one can gather that the plants’ characteristics may vary. Hereafter we draw the profile of some typical plants. To easily decode the names of the plants please see this example:

Maker Plant 100-22E/9L-17

• The first group formed by three numbers 100 indicates the useful working width expressed in centimetres ( in this case 100 cm. equal to 39.37 “ )
• In the second group formed by two numbers and one or two letters 22E we have the number of the bonding coaters, the number of dryers and the type of the strewing system ( in this case 2 coaters, two dryers and E stands for electrostatic system)
• In the third group 9L-17 the first number 9 indicate the length of the first dryer in meters (in this case 9 meters, equal to 29.5 ft. ) the second letter L stands for Linear type of dryer, the final number 17 indicates the length of the second dryer (17 metres, equal to 56 ft. )

	Common features for all the types of maker plants
	Guidelines for the selection of a plant
	Plant effeciency
	Plant versatility
	Plant reliability
	Quality
	Envitonment
	Safety
MAKER PLANT
	1. Maker plant 100-22E/9L-17
	2. Maker plant 165-22GE/16L-20
	3. Maker plant 100-22GE/20-60
	4. Maker plant 165-22GE/30-90
	5. Maker plant 165-22GE/50-150

COMMON FEATURES FOR ALL THE TYPES OF MAKER PLANTS DESCRIBED

1. DC or AC motors according to the customer’s choice
2. Air in the dryers heated by direct or indirect generators, steam exchangers, diathermic oil exchangers, regenerators.
3. Liquid or gaseous fuel according to the customer’s possibility
4. Automatic adjustment of dryers’ temperature
5. Direct control of dryers’ temperature
6. Measuring of the components’ weight through gamma-ray system
7. Steam conditioning area for plants at point 3-4-5
8. All plants are provided with anti-curling as well as back wetting devices
9. Production’s parameters programming and management through PLC with user interface
10. Self-diagnosis of working anomalies
11. Variable flow-rate blowers
12. No-stop winders applicable to all plants upon request
13. LEL system when required (Low explosion Level)
14. All plants built in accordance with CE safety regulations
15. All plants provided with operation handbook , periodical maintenance ordinary maintenance and preventive maintenance system
16. All plants equipped with a series of spare parts allowing effectiveness for a year

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GUIDELINES FOR THE SELECTION OF A PLANT

1. Product or range of products intended to be produced
2. Yearly production for each product
3. Number of production days in a year and number of shifts in a day
4. For phenolic resin bonded items, forecast for polymerization in line or in separate curing oven in continuity
5. Available centralized power sources such as steam or diathermic oil
6. Needed production width
7. Available area and its configuration
8. Financial assets
9. Forecast for possible enlargement

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PLANT EFFICIENCY

The efficiency of your plant will depend on two essential matters:

1. The number of items and consequently the number of grits that are going to be produced. Your unit’s efficiency can be considered inversely proportional to the amount of items to be produced. A high number of items in production not only reduces the useful time but also entails onerous production cycles that can decisively affect the average warehouse stocks.
   
2. The organization of the whole productive unit, paying extreme attention to programs, supplies, ordinary and preventive maintenance, staff training. The whole must fit in a carefully planned factory lay-out in order to prevent long and winding paths, useless crossings and all kind of problematic moves for the material.

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PLANT VERSATILITY

The most versatile plant, regardless of its production effectiveness, it’s a plant with two correctly proportioned festoon dryers provided with independent temperature and stay time areas which allows the creation of a drying curve. Such a plant can well be defined “a universal plant” since allows to produce abrasive products on paper, cloth, combination and fibre backing supports using the whole range of adhesives commonly in use.
However, please note that, a maker designed for the so called “heavy products” easily becomes oversized for “light” products such as A,B,C wgt. papers or in general papers coated with micro grits with or without lube top size.

Many western producers are equipped with different makers, all of them featuring different characteristics being designed for the production of more homogeneous groups of items.
This solution makes more flexible the manufacturer productive system allowing the simultaneous or two or more items making easier the production planning, enhancing the warehouse turnover rate, with remarkable economic advantages and better customer services.

Should it be true (but it’s not always like that) that the investment required for two dedicated makers is higher than the investment for a large size maker, it’s also sure that the usefulness of dedicated systems is dramatically greater than the one provided by a single makers.

Furthermore, considering the great technical and technological longevity of abrasive maker plants, the initial investment is not a decisive factor for a company’s capacity to create profits.

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PLANT RELIABILITY

As emphasized in the IM&T historic notes, the author in over 50 years of an activity spent totally in the coated abrasive field, had the opportunity to build up an outstanding experience
in different sectors such as research, production, plant engineering and management.
This qualified experience focused onto the maker plants and the related production equipment
enabled IM&T to offer productive units of high reliability and dramatic longevity. For an example the very first plant installed, the one of BMA in Milan Italy, settled in 1958 is still producing at full capacity coated abrasive jumbo rolls well appreciated for its quality and exported all over the world.

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QUALITY

A good maker should be considered as the mean to produce top quality abrasives and IM&T plants feature all the necessary characteristics for that. Useless to stress the importance of the raw material used for producing high quality coated abrasives, backings, mineral grains, adhesives, additives etc.. should be choose attentively.
Coated abrasives are items of a very heterogeneous composition, in spite of all possible variety of formulations and control means, their production is still today defined an art in which human action represents a fundamental component.
Having the most modern plant provided with the top technological instruments of control, using raw material from the most experienced and reliable suppliers doesn’t guarantee at all the achievement of a high quality final product.
Top quality in coated abrasive production can be achieved only strictly following a rigid defined procedure that covers all the manufacturing phase from the raw material suppliers’ choice and control, throughout the entire production , testing, conversion storage, customer servicing, administration and safety standard.
IM&T provides to the purchasers of its plants a full package of know-how for production and a diligent after sale service enabling even a beginner to achieve quickly a top quality production.

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ENVIRONMENT

All plants for coated abrasive production can be provided with a cleaning system for the fluids down flowing from dryers, adhesives’ setting and application areas.
IM&T carefully informs its customers about the proper systems to eliminate emissions that could be harmful to operators and to the environment.

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SAFETY

All plants and accessories supplied by IM&T are manufactured in full compliance with CE regulations 89/392 and annexes concerning the safety of equipment in operational time.

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It’s the smallest produced by IM&T. Due to its first linear dryer it is indicated for producing with epoxy, urea and animal adhesives. Therefore ideal to produce waterproof paper, dry paper for car body shops, sheet and roll cloth for workshops, plain or lube finishing paper for furniture industry. Furthermore, considering a remarkable reduction in production power, with this type of plant it’s even possible to produce phenolic semi-resined items.

This plant has the same characteristics of the one described above but, its useful working width of mm. 1650 (65”) allows to produce items then convertible into wide belts. Its production capacity is higher than the above plant, not only due to its wider useful width but also thanks to a greater dryers’ size resulting in a higher production speed.
The separate and independent gravity and the electrostatic strewing system allow the use different abrasive minerals and to coat abrasive surfaces expressly developed to fit even peculiar final users’ requests, for an example: double resin bonded, very open coat, for wide belts in woodworking industry.
The drying system with independent temperature and stay time set for each areas, allows the use of phenolic adhesives.

This type of plant equipped with two festoon dryers, allows bonding any backing support with double phenolic resin for all kind of final application. Both festoon dryers are divided into independent temperature and stay time areas thus allowing the creation of a drying curve, characteristic of the phenolic adhesives.
If the plant is intended only for producing cloths for metal working, a mm. 1000 (39.37”) width is considered sufficient.
While the two previous plants are generally linear, with no curves, this one feature a U-turn shape which besides to reduce the overall length, allows to gather in a small area all the machines.

With a useful working width of mm.1650 ( 65”) this plant is nowadays considered the universal maker above all others. The length of the festoon dryers allows a significant production capacity with all backing supports, from papers to any kind of cloths, combinations and fibres. All obviously bonded with phenolic resins or anyway with synthetic adhesives of different types.
The mineral grains strewing is double, gravity and electrostatic, the festoon dryers have multiple areas as described for former makers. The floor lay-out for such a plant features a double C, allowing having all the machines aligned in a small area, easily under the operators’ control.

This plant is similar to the previous one yet with a greater production capacity thanks to the larger size of its dryers.

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