larryccf
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2016
- Messages
- 202
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- 43
as some may recall, when i last posted here, i had purchased a G120 roller shredder,with .8mm cut rollers, from a polish outfit, tobaccoandmachines.com and had the rollers go bad, or needing replacement within 50 lbs of tobacco. The cutting ribs from one roller would not fit into the "lands" on the corresponding roller and vice versa when i attempted to fit them together by hand when removed from the machine. I surmised at the time, (i've got a slight background in metals manufacturing) that the rollers had not been hardened.
Some alloys cannot be heat treated or hardened after machining as they will warp in the process of heat treatment - those alloys have to be purchased pre-hardened and machined in the hardened state, which adds to the cost of production as being pre-hardened, the lathe has to be set to turning at a slower turning speed, which means a slower cycle time per roller or a higher production cost per roller.
Well i ordered a replacement set of .8mm rollers, hoping the first set of rollers were just bad - 2nd set gave me a similar lifespan, 50-60 lbs of leaf before needing replacement, even though i had taken the additonal step of stripping out heavy veins, not just the stem. So on the next replacement i ordered 1.0mm rollers for the G120 machine. Surprisingly they have now given me 160 lbs of leaf shredding.
The only thing i can suspect, and key word there is "suspect" is that the .8mm ribs on one roller have less material to resist compacting or becoming thicker but shorter. Both times the .8mm rollers would not fully engage with it's corresponding roller by hand when out of the G120 machine. .8mm is basically .032" as 1mm approximately equals .040". The 1.0mm rollers, with ribs at a "full" .040" thickness, had more material to resist compaction. I am now ready to replace these as they are giving me too much "dust" per lb shredded - inspecting them i notice the edges of the cutting lands are rounded (ie not sharp square cut at the edges) and instead of actually cutting the tobacco leaf are "crushing" it in-between the ribs of the opposing roller. Again, because of lack of hardening.
the above leads to not consider .7mm shredders or much less the new .5mm shredders
This is why i'm looking at the powermatic S shredder if i get some positive feedback on the latest generation.
fwiw
Some alloys cannot be heat treated or hardened after machining as they will warp in the process of heat treatment - those alloys have to be purchased pre-hardened and machined in the hardened state, which adds to the cost of production as being pre-hardened, the lathe has to be set to turning at a slower turning speed, which means a slower cycle time per roller or a higher production cost per roller.
Well i ordered a replacement set of .8mm rollers, hoping the first set of rollers were just bad - 2nd set gave me a similar lifespan, 50-60 lbs of leaf before needing replacement, even though i had taken the additonal step of stripping out heavy veins, not just the stem. So on the next replacement i ordered 1.0mm rollers for the G120 machine. Surprisingly they have now given me 160 lbs of leaf shredding.
The only thing i can suspect, and key word there is "suspect" is that the .8mm ribs on one roller have less material to resist compacting or becoming thicker but shorter. Both times the .8mm rollers would not fully engage with it's corresponding roller by hand when out of the G120 machine. .8mm is basically .032" as 1mm approximately equals .040". The 1.0mm rollers, with ribs at a "full" .040" thickness, had more material to resist compaction. I am now ready to replace these as they are giving me too much "dust" per lb shredded - inspecting them i notice the edges of the cutting lands are rounded (ie not sharp square cut at the edges) and instead of actually cutting the tobacco leaf are "crushing" it in-between the ribs of the opposing roller. Again, because of lack of hardening.
the above leads to not consider .7mm shredders or much less the new .5mm shredders
This is why i'm looking at the powermatic S shredder if i get some positive feedback on the latest generation.
fwiw
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