Big card corrugator

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32603, 11 May 1971, Page 20

Big card corrugator

An $820,000 cardboard corrugator, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, which has been in use at the Christchurch plant of the Hygrade Packaging Company, was commissioned at a special function yesterday.

Among those present were the general manager of the Hygrade company, Mr W. Burrell, and the marketing manager and assistant general manager, a former All Black captain, Mr W. J. Whineray. The high-speed, automatic Langston Masson corrugator, capable of four times the production of Hygrade’s existing machinery, will meet all the South Island’s needs for corrugated board. At 305 ft, almost the length of a Rugby ground, the corrugator can produce 750 ft of 87in-wide corrugated cardboard packaging a minute, or

seven miles of packing an hour. Cutting and creasing operations are all controlled automatically and the requirements of a new order can be met without stopping the machine by pre-setting electronic controls. Hygrade’s Christchurch manager, Mr W. Houseman, said that the 160-ton corrugator, could dispose of seven rolls of board an hour. These are carried by a specially designed electric truck and lifted into place by mechanical arms. In the corrugation process heavy paper is treated by steam, pressure and heavy steel rollers which bend and mould the paper to the required shape. A backing paper or liner is glued to the moulded paper. Because of the size and complexity of the new machine, a special boiler to supply steam was manufactured in Christchurch at a cost of $50,000 and a 440volt electricity power sup-

ply has been installed at a further cost of $20,000. One of the problems associated with corrugated board manufacture is warping, but this is largely overcome in tiie new machine by the inclusion of new type hot plates over which the board is passed before cutting. Hygrade supplies all the South Island requirements for corrugated packaging. I One-fifth of Hygrade’s South | Island production is used for| packaging the apple crop, much of which is exported.! This year sufficient board will be manufactured at the plant for 1.75 million boxes of apples.