Improved finish and sanding quality

Lacquering Service Company:
Improved finish by replacement of cleaning roller in wide belt sander to Flex Trim sanding head

Spanish lacquering service company improved finish with sanding solution from Flex Trim.
Further results are elimination of manual hand sanding and longer lifetime of sanding materials.

The customer:

The Spanish lacquering service company, Barnizados Alcover S.L. in Tarragona, wanted to improve sanding quality, and mounted a Flex Trim sanding head in his wide belt sander.

The task:

Like most of medium-sized lacquering service companies, Barnizados Alcover carries out a lot of different types of lacquering tasks. A big part of the tasks is lacquering of doors, where, for the time being, the trend in the market moves toward flat doors without panels and pro- files.

Until the solution from Flex Trim was implemented, the flat items were sanded on a wide belt sander with 2 sanding groups and a sec- tional pad unit. All together this was good sanding machine, but Ba- rnizados Alcover still wanted to increase the surface finish on the end products.

The wide belt sander left some narrow stripes on the surface, especially at the end of the lifetime of the belts, and small un-sanded rough areas in the surface were often observed. These rough spots where now removed by manual hand sanding.

Barnizados Alcover already knew the Flex Trim sanding system and qualities from its 8 head profile sander equipped with Flex Trim sand- ing heads and strips, and were convinced that Flex Trim could solve the problem.

The solution

The cleaning roller in Barnizados Alcover’s wide belt sander that consisted of a non-wowen Scotch Brite type was now replaced with a Flex Trim ø100mm sanding head.
An even better result could have been obtained by installing a bigger sanding head, but the dimensions of the exhaust shield in the wide belt sander were too limited.

The new sanding head from Flex Trim was adjusted to turn in the opposite direction of the last belt in the widebelt sander (counter clockwise), in order to cut away the fibres. The selected grit 320 was one grit higher than on the last belt, grit 280.

The result

After mounting the new Flex Trim sanding head the sanding pressure and speed were adjusted by instruction from Flex Trim.
Already after the first sanding tests, it was clear that the items had a better finish, which was achieved by adding an additional sanding unit to the machine, and finishing with a finer 320 grit.

By a closer look at the surface, it was demonstrated that also the small rough unsanded spots, now were sanded.

The benefits for the customer

The Flex Trim sanding head added an additional sanding unit to Barnizados Alcover’s wide belt sander. With this solution an improved and uniformed sanding quality was obtained, with no need for additional time consuming sanding by hand.

Further more, the lifetime of the belts have been extended reducing costs because the Flex Trim sanding head is able to remove the stripes in the surface often produced by the belt near the end of its lifetime.

Again, implementation of sanding solutions from Flex Trim has showed significant improvements of surface quality and benefits for the customer.

In other words: “Quality –not only on the surface”.