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Step Back
in Time - Volume 2 - Potpourri
Volume 1 of STEP BACK, established that STEP BACK was
a pause to glance back to earlier times in the paper industry.
This volume, Volume 2 is titled potpourri:
Being a paper industry history junkie, during my mill visits,
I kept my eyes and ears open for installations and designs
that might have historical significance. I saw quite a few operations
that had special interest. Some were unique in the their approach
to problem solving, some were little known and in retrospect,
there were others that contrasted greatly with how we do things today.
Around the mid 1950s there was an increasing need for printing
papers and particularly coated and filled sheets. While winders
at that time were not yet feeling production pressure there were
concerns for shipping roll quality. With only two winding techniques
available, two drum or centerwind, innovation at times became
interesting. Shipping roll diameters were relatively small compared
to today's rolls. The paper machines for the most part were still
in the sub 1500 to 2000 FPM range. Winder speeds were generally
in the range of 2 ½ times paper machine speed. If the machine
was designed for 1800 FPM, a 5000 FPM winder was plenty adequate.
A pinch existed in the ability of winders to structure rolls.
As sheets got denser and finishes improved, hard roll problems
were rearing their ugly head. Mills began to have hard roll problems
on printing grades and particularly coated supercalendered grades.
FOUR DRUM SURFACE WINDER - ODDEST WINDUP!
FOURDRINIER RUNNING BACKWARDS!
AN
OSHA INSPECTOR'S DREAM MACHINE!
As the set is winding, the coreshaft anchor powered by an air motor engages a collar on
the end of the coreshaft. Theslat conveyor started. As the
conveyor drives the set towards the back of the winder, the coreshaft
drops onto the hooks. The roller on the shaft hook minimize damage
to the rolls of the set. The hooks then transfer the coreshaft
to the core storage pockets where it is dressed, ready for the
next winding cycle. (sequence is pink, orange and blue). The last
of these systems were built about 1960
This installation is shown as a dramatic
comparison of the mechanical winder operations of the past and
the automated operations in place today. This operation would
have been an OSHA inspectors dream! NOISY! PINCH POINTS! OPPORTUNITY
FOR INJURY! The winder drums made a high pitched wine that varied
with winder speed-probably up to 120 dB. The air motor on the
shaft anchor made a low pitch noise of it's own. It was amazing
the shaft transfer system held together. The winder bridge was
counterbalanced but would slam up and down with a crash. When
the conveyor drive started the noise added to the melee. When
the roll was stripped to the back, first one then the second hook
would crash down into the coreshaft. When the set was completely
stripped from the shaft, the core shaft would drop a couple inches
into the hooks with a resounding bang and whipping bounce. Then
the transfer would start it's own racket as it deposited the core
shaft in the dressing station. The only thing noisier than all
of this was when the shaft lift mechanism as it raised the coreshaft
and rolled it crashing into the drum pocket. The systems were a maintenance headache.
THE
CAMELOT WINDER - A ONE OF A KIND
When the time came to crank up the winder-it ran perfecto! Not
a pound of paper lost. Just a 5 minute torch job was required
to clear a small interference. It was one of the smoothest rebuilds
I was ever involved in thanks to an engineer named Ben Winkleman
and a mill engineer named Gerry Lynes and a dedicated paper mill.
Not a hitch. So much so, we renamed the winder "Camelot".
THE IRON MOUNTAIN!
When we think of open side super calendars
we normally think of the European open side design. While the European open side designs were being imported to the U.
S. the local builders were still building closed stacks. On another of my visits to one of the old New York and Penn mills,
I came across the biggest pile of castings I ever saw or hope
to see in a paper mill. This was a CAST IRON OPEN SIDE SUPERCALENDER.
The super was about 180-190" face and had the name of Beloit
cast into the massive vertical frames.Everything on the supercalender was cast iron
including the top caps, the main frames, bearing housings and arms, fly roll
brackets-you get the picture.
The real oddity was this US open side stack apparently was installed
sometime in the 40s or 50s before we ever heard of a European
open stacks. The best information I could find was that the stacks
were sold by Beloit and the work sub-contracted to Black Clawson.
Does anyone have any background information on these stacks?
WINDER DRUM NOISE!
FRONT DRUM WRAP & SCORE SLITTERS
FIRST CORE SUPPORT WINDER
BY Luigi Bagnato October 1997
Revised May 2, 1998-The First Core Support
Winder. Image and text changed.
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When visiting a mill on the west
coast, I thing it was Crown Zellerbach in Camas, WA, turned a corner and saw a fourdrinier running in reverse!
What gives? I'd heard of a Harper Fourdrinier but never expected
to see one. This was 1961 and most of the Harpers were built at
the turn of the century. One of the main advantages of the Harper
was real estate. Locating the press section over the fourdrinier
and using stack dryers, reduced building length but added significantly
to headroom. This particular machine had unfelted dryers. The
Harper layout is similar to a cylinder machine, the main difference
being the use of a fourdrinier as a former as opposed to vats
Shaftless winding was not used
in the US until the mid to late 1970s. U. S. builders were slow to adopt this
new concept. Core shafts, particularly as used on wide winders, were heavy and cumbersome. The system shown was used in the 50s through the early 60s. The winder bridge was
lowered and the set discharged to the stripping conveyor (slat log puller). When the set ejected from the winder it would push the shaft hooks out (2 hooks located at the quarter points of
the winder). The bridge is raised. There is a dressed core shaft ready in the pocket at the front of the roll out apron. The shaft lift is raised by the two cylinders, the action tipping the core
shaft into the drum nip.
I was involved in a winder rebuild in a southern linerboard
mill (West Virginia P & P at Charleston, SC) in the late 1960s. The mill had a Cameron winder that ran
reasonably well but needed a general upgrade. Black Clawson did
a rider roll rebuild some time in the past that looked good and
could be salvaged. The winder was about 240" face at 6000
FPM. The lead-in and slitter section were completely replaced..
The windup was rebuilt to shaftless. The unwind was "half
and half"-half original and half new. The rebuild was to
be installed on a 36 hour machine shutdown and several reels would
be held over to check out the winder before the machine came back
on line. It was going to be tight so a lot of site prep was done
before the machine shutdown such as install baseplates, wiring,
etc.
One thing you could rely on before
"silent" drum grooving
was that if the winder was running when you walked into the machine
room, you could hear it. And the faster it ran, the louder it
got. The tour foreman could tell by the noise level how the winder
crew were doing. In the days before there was an awareness of
noise problems and the damage noise could do, winder drums used
a nominal 5 degree chevron drum groove for traction. My first
experience with this problem was in the very early 60s at the
Port. Alberni, BC mill in Canada. As their newsprint winders increased
in speed the noise became increasingly objectionable. Working
with Bernie Dahl of research, it was determined that increasing
the angle of chevrons decreased the drum noise. Installing 10
degree chevron grooving at the Port Alberni mill reduced the noise
considerably without a loss in traction. Later working with Jere Crouse of
Beloit R & D, 15 degree chevron grooving with a special noise reducing
shape became more or less a standard until tractionized drum surfaces
took over. One of the reasons I remember this trip was my discussion
with a Mountie over the color of a traffic light on Vancouver Island.
FRONT DRUM WRAP
did not appear to have great appeal yet became popular
for a time in the late 50s. The sheet run makes a de-energizing
nip at the core shaft and the height of the winder impacts unfavorably
on the winder CG, especially at high speeds and winding rough
surface grades-not to mention the increased working height for
the operators. It is difficult in my mind to find an advantage
for the front drum wrap except the accessibility of the slitters.
THE LAST
OF POTPOURRI! Unlike the previous designs, this is not
an item I saw in my travels but something found in the archives.
It was in a sepia tone photo that had the typical late 1800s or
early 1900s look about it. It only proves the saying, "what
goes around comes around".
