Guill Tool & Engineering is dramatically changing the agricultural and horticultural landscape with their new advanced tooling that utilizes three layers to produce the necessary tubing for efficient and environmentally safe drip irrigation. The technology is based on their 800 Series for advanced medical tooling as well as other Guill tooling innovations, all of which are designed together to create this uniquely engineered product.
How It Works
The head/die engineering utilizes a spiral flow that handles three layers. Prior to this advancement, only two layers were common. One of the key benefits of this tooling is that it allows an inexpensive regrind polymer, or most any type of polymer, to be the bulk of the material inside the tube, hose or pipe.
The new drip irrigation crosshead/die is designed to produce a tube that uses an ABA, ABC or virtually any type of three-layer construction. In this application, the inner layer is composed of a majority of a less expensive regrind material (or any polymer desired) and is typically surrounded by a very thin layer of virgin polymer, often times only 1/1000th (.0001) of an inch (.00254 mm) or less.
With Guill’s patented flow design, the walls of the tubing require less polymer material to achieve the desired or mandated tube-burst strength requirements, saving money for the drip-irrigation user.
Today, the Guill tooling three-layer model for drip irrigation is the most requested by a majority of OEM/tube manufacturers and is offered in measurements ranging from 5/8 of an inch to one inch (15.875 mm – 25.4 mm). The new Guill three-layer design is suitable for flat or round tubing in a wide a variety of user requirements for various types of emitters—sprays, drip holes, etc.
Extrusion Objectives
The objective is to enable tube, hose and pipe makers to have the most cost-effective drip-irrigation systems that control the exact amount of water and fertilizer required to serve the expanding agricultural and horticultural global market.
According to Bill Conley, Guill’s Technical Sales Manager, “Our current three-layered solution for drip irrigation is one of our most popular layered technologies being offered. It can have stripes or other markings for identification on all pipe, hose and tubing extrusion. The most important aspect of this three-layer design is total confidence for the user—the virgin material completely and securely surrounds all other layered materials utilized, such as regrind. This ensures protection against any potential environmental concerns with hosing or tubing today with increasingly stricter regulations likely to follow.”
Conley adds, “This is important because the U.S. and other countries are accelerating their efforts to minimize the effect of contaminants in the environment and on individuals. Guill remains at the forefront in assisting tube, hose and pipe producers’ of end products that meet all environmental requirements while maintaining precise production control. In addition, Guill has addressed the demand for lower manufacturing costs as a key benefit of this three-layer technology.”
Guill’s new drip-irrigation tooling’s ability to deliver precision in extrusion for polymer tubes and pipes with extreme consistency and accuracy is one of the company’s hallmarks. The tooling is engineered with a host of features and benefits that combine all the best in extrusion technology and is created especially for this drip-irrigation process. The primary features include:
- Split or patent-pending single flow to the body of the die.
- Patented spiral engineering for upstream thermal balancing, a superb design that achieves an equal flow resulting in extremely-close-tolerances, thin-walls, and multilayered products.
- Optimized deflectors offer minimum chamber residence time for the extrusion material.
- Patented Feather Touch design for easy concentricity adjustment enables low-effort concentricity adjustment without choking off the upstream. It is never compromised by the clamping forces necessary to create a proper seal, as is often the case with ordinary tooling systems.
- Alignment on a common shaft. All the deflectors and the Feather Touch concentrically eliminate the tolerance stack-up while reducing required set-up time.
- Gumspace adjustment for optimum temperature control. A recessed die-nut enables a heater to warm the entire die area for the optimum in temperature control.
- Cartridge or band heaters—available as an option for the main extrusion die.
- Saves money and time with tip replacement. Only an insert rather than the entire tip needs to be used; installs in about 1 minute or less.
Full Product Line
Today, Guill Tool also manufactures tips, dies, and breaker plates using state-of-the-art computerized CNC machining and EDM equipment.
Engineering services using the latest CAD systems are available for custom-designing extrusion-tooling products: crossheads, tips, clamps, flanges, air wipes, forming rolls, spiderless inline dies, dies, swing gates, breaker plates, special equipment, and sizing dies.
Guill Tool received ISO certification in 1995, the first major extrusion tooling company worldwide to meet those international standards. The company has long been recognized as one of the leading established designers and manufacturers of custom extrusion tooling for all types of applications, including wire, cable, fiber optics, medical tube, wood composites, automotive tube, plastics compounding, custom applications, rubber, profile, industrial pipe, hose and tube, blow molding, plus food and packaging.
The company also provides education and training for the extrusion industry with plastic and aluminum model heads, fully illustrated operating manuals for step-by-step assembly and disassembly, training videotapes, as well as classes on the care and cleaning of extrusion tooling.
Founded in Rhode Island in 1962 by A. Roger Guillemette, Guill Tool was established as a job shop that supplied tips, dies, crossheads, and replacement parts to the wire and cable, plastics, and rubber industries in New England. It now supplies the entire U.S., Canada and through representatives Guill offers worldwide distribution market.
For a free evaluation, technical product sheets, and general information—or for the name of a representative in your area—please contact Guill Tool & Engineering Co., Inc. at 10 Pike Street, West Warwick, RI 02893 (USA). Tel: (401) 828-7600. Fax: (401) 823-5310. Email: websales@guill.com; www.Guill.com.