16th April 2012
The new coil slitting line, part of Top Tubes’ extensive £0.6m investment programme, is now nearing completion.
The 1500mm width slitter can accommodate coils of up to 25 tonnes in weight and can slit steel from 0.6mm to 5mm thickness into as many as 26 strips at a time by employing three sets of blades.
A special feature is the dual-slitter quick-change heads which can be set off-line to enable rapid tool changeover in as little as 20 minutes.
Flooding problem
The line includes a huge 6 metre deep looping pit, which was responsible for much consternation during construction. The local water table is just 2.3 metres below ground, which meant that flooding of the pit was a constant problem which became progressively worse as the excavation deepened, being remedied first by a 6 inch pump, then a 12 inch pump and finally by two 12 inch pumps working non-stop. Happily, the water table no longer poses a problem thanks to the steel lined tank which has been sunk into the pit.
Over the Easter weekend a massive new 25 tonne capacity overhead crane was hoisted into place which will be used to transfer the heavy coils onto the slitting line – a task which has also required the extensive strengthening of the gantry system and its foundations.
The new slitting line replaces the slitting facility which was previously located at a separate site, and will provide Top Tubes with much greater flexibility and efficiency and enable a wider range of customers to be served – ‘outstripping’, you could say, what we were capable of before.
