W&H packs 'em in for open house

Plastics processing and printing machine manufacturer Windmöller & Hölscher (Lengerich, Germany) welcomed more than 1200 visitors from 57 countries to a 3-day open house at its production facility here last week to give customers, prospects, and the trade press a peek at what the company expects to highlight at next year’s K 2010 plastics show in Düsseldorf, Germany. The in-house Expo featured two world premieres of equipment just coming into production including a new type of 3-layer blown-film line, Optimex, and the Aquarex water-cooled, inverted blown-film line designed to produce film that rivals cast-film clarity and gloss.

Other new developments that were demonstrated included the company’s monoaxial film stretching unit (MDO) as an off-line film "upgrader" to produce film with better toughness in the machine direction, higher clarity, and thinner film layers to ensure optimal use of expensive barrier resins. In another development, the company’s Filmex cast-film line, can now be equipped to produce up to 17 nanolayers with a die from U.S. flat die producer Cloeren (Orange, TX) for stretch film production thanks to a special feedblock. A copper casting roll provides high chill effect on the melt. Such films have high puncture resistance, ductility, and a maximum stretch. A full report on the W&H in-house Expo will appear in the January issue of Modern Plastics Worldwide. —Robert Colvin