In August, Aluprof S.A. purchased additional production lines for its paint shop and kneading department.

In the paint shop, a new manual line by Adal and an automatic booth by Wagner-Service P were started up, while in the kneading department a new automatic line by Müller Technologies AG Switzerland is in operation. Aluprof has been collaborating with the suppliers of this equipment for a number of years.

Manual line

This consists of a powder coating centre, an oven for polymerisation and a manual cross conveyor, that is, a cross-bar conveying system.

The centre consists of a powder booth with two manual coating stands, manual electrostatic spraying applications and a ventilation system. The oven for soaking profiles with sprayed on paint with temperature stabilisation across the entire work area ensures complete paint polymerisation. Profiles are loaded and unloaded through a specially designed conveying system called a cross conveyor. Cross-bars are moved by means of manual traversers to ensure correct material flow.

Automatic powder coating booth

This is equipped with an application system (consisting of 14 guns), a recovery cyclone system and a fire extinguishing system. It allows efficient automatic coating with multiple colours and ensures both rapid colour change and repeatable coating thickness.

Automatic combined (warm) profile production line

This new high-capacity line is operated by four persons.

The line consists of:

two feed tables from which aluminium profiles travel to the knurling machines;

two knurling machines, which make special cuts in profile seats using special wheels;

an automatic table, which conveys profiles from the knurling machines to the kneading machine;

an 'advanced' kneading machine, which allows the automatic refitting of the system in order to select the proper parameters for kneading a specific profile;

a take-up table, from which profiles are packed on pallets.

Advantages of the new line:

operator safety – marked off limited access zones;

symmetry and stability in knurling grooves – elastic suspension of knurling wheels;rapid line refitting and the ability to knead profiles with very complex shapes – 13 axes set automatically (in the 'old' line, six axes);

the ability to manufacture profiles with large overall dimensions – a profile height of up to 440 mm and width of up to 395 mm;

rectilinearity measurement of manufactured profiles;

an additional stand for profile geometry measurement.