Tips

There are many designs of roll handling equipment available to make moving, turning and manipulating heavy rolls of material easier. Many factors, such as efficiency, ease of use and initial cost will weigh heavily in your decision on the best equipment for your application.

One often overlooked factor is roll tilt while the roll is suspended in air. Most roll handling equipment allows operators the ability to pick up vertically (eye to the sky) stored rolls and turn them, while suspended, to be oriented horizontally for the converting process. Many types of roll handling equipment will not position the roll of material truly parallel to the floor; there will always be some tilt to the roll while it is suspended. This may be a problem for two reasons. If you are lowering the roll to rest on the floor or table, one "corner" or edge of the roll will always touch the floor or table before the rolls face comes to rest, which may cause harm to your roll, ultimately creating wasted materials. If you are loading a cantilevered air shaft from the roll handling device it will be difficult align a non parallel (to the floor) roll core to a parallel air shaft making unwind loading difficult and time consuming.

Ask yourself, do you want true horizontal and / or vertical orientation for your roll of material? This may be one of many considerations when deciding which roll handling equipment is best for your requirements.

Jeffrey Damour, Sales Engineer, Converter Accessory Corporation, Wind Gap, PA, Phone - 800-433-2413