Looking for the perfect surface

Two years ago Imeas spa, wide belt sander manufacturer of Villa Cortese near Milan in northern Italy, installed the first of its latest sanding line configurations in a North American mill.
The Cross-Transversal Belt Sander, CRTB, was developed as a direct response to a request by Willamette of Simsboro, North Carolina for such a system.
The principle is that a final sanding belt is installed running across the direction of travel of the panel through the sanding line.
Now that this system has been running successfully at Simsboro for two years, says Imeas, a second installation has been completed and went into production in early March this year. This time, the customer was closer to home, being the major MDF producer, Fantoni spa of Osoppo in north east Italy. One of Fantoni’s major customers wanted to laminate the company’s MDF with thin papers and so a very smooth surface was vital.
Fantoni is itself a furniture maker and so saw the advantages of a finer surfaced panel for use in its own factory too. In fact it had an existing eight-head sander at Osoppo, supplied by a competitor of Imeas, but as the CR-TB can be fitted after any existing sander, this was no obstacle.
“Even with four calibrating heads and four finishing heads with platens, the surface of MDF when viewed using a rugosimeter still looks rough, with sharp peaks and troughs,explains Imeas’ area sales manager, Andrea de Giacomo. “The transversal head cuts the tops off these peaks to produce an ultra-smooth finish.”
Mr de Giacomo goes on to explain that unidirectional sanding tends to pull up the surface of the MDF and that the cross-sanding removes this effect.
This does not only have advantages when the laminator is using thin or light-coloured papers, but it also means less paint consumption where that is the finish required. “Thus absorption is less, and you get a better surface finish,he says.
Mr de Giacomo joined Imeas early this year as one of the company’s three area sales managers. The company had to make some changes to its sales organisation following the departure of sales manager Renzo Stancanelli at the end of 2003 and sales director Riccardo Ferrari in April this year. It was coincidence that both left within a short time of each other, on friendly terms, to pursue different careers in other industries.
Mr de Giacomo and a second area sales manager, Axel Bourgraff, joined sales director Ing Francesco Zenere, son of the company’s owner Franco Zenere. All are engineers who bring considerable experience and expertise to their respective roles.
Franco Zenere is also involved in day-today sales, being responsible for the US market in particular, as well as taking an overseeing role in all other markets, major contracts and in relationships with the complete panel line suppliers.
Francesco Zenere takes particular responsibility for sales in the Asian and Australasian markets.
Mr de Giacomo, who speaks Spanish and English, concentrates on central and South America, Spain and Portugal, as well as the Italian market.
Mr Bourgraff, a Belgian, is responsible for the rest of Europe, the Middle East, Turkey and Russia. He speaks French English, Italian, Dutch and German.
In recent times, there have been two major changes to Imeas ‘Super Performance’ sanders. Firstly, the abrasive belt length on the latest machines has been increased to 4000mm. It used to be 3200mm for all machines, four feet to nine feet wide, but has been increased to give the belt more time to cool down and to be cleaned, thus further improving surface finish and belt life, says the company.
The small difference in the cost of the longer belt is claimed to be more than compensated by the improvement in finishing capability. This modification cannot be retro-fitted as the frames of the machines are bigger to accommodate the longer belt.
The second major change came in the form of increased speed of these new models. The maximum has been increased from 90 to 120m per minute, by a modification to the gears.
Imeas has had a good run of orders in the past year at its two manufacturing bases – Villa Cortese, Italy, and Suzhou, China, where it has a joint venture company called Imeas Sander Manufacturing (Suzhou) Co Ltd.
The Chinese company only makes four feet wide sanders, which the company says are built to Imeas of Italy standards, but at Chinese costs. It has gained 40 orders in the last 12 months – 16 of them in the past six – and these mainly go to Chinese customers. However, Imeas Suzhou does have some European customers with a lower capacity requirement who appreciate the
smaller capacity and lower cost of the Chinese-made machine.
Orders in 2004 for the Italian-made eight to ten feet wide ‘Super Performance’ sanders include sales to China, Iran, Chile, Italy (that Fantoni CR-RB), Spain and Korea.
In China there was Asia Dekor MDF/HDF in Shenzen and Hebei Yingang MDF at Zhending; Jilin Forest’s particleboard line at Changchun; and Langxiang Forestry, also particleboard, in Heilongjiang.
In Iran, the customer was Arian Sina; in Chile, Arauco for its plywood line; in Spain, Finsa of Santiago for its particleboard line; while in Korea, the destination was Dong Wha of Inchon. Not all of these were complete new lines – some were retro-fits to upgrade existing lines. Thus Finsa added two heads to its six-head line, while Fantoni added the CR-TB units as stated earlier.
This opportunity to supply retro-fits and upgrades to existing lines is of course an important part of any business involved in the panel industry today, in view of the relative scarcity of complete new line projects.
Having said that, most of Imeas’ business in the last 12 months has come from the supply of complete new sanding lines.
Apart from the Imeas Suzhou factory, the company also has a representative office in Beijing, run by Winston Yuan and his Chinese staff, which follows all projects for Imeas Italy.
In North America, there is Imeas Inc, run by Fred Kurpiel and based in Peachtree City, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr Kurpiel joined the company in 1999 and, since then, Imeas has built on its success in the North American market for wide sanders. In Australia, the company has a sales office in Victoria covering Australia and New Zealand as well as other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
Apart from the wood panel industry, Imeas spa also specialises in the polishing and grinding of metals, particularly the stainless steel belts used in continuous presses in the wood panel industry and press plates for high pressure laminates for decorative applications, as well as for PC circuit boards.
The company claims that these two branches of the company, while seemingly unrelated, offer opportunities for cross-over of expertise, ideas and technology to the advantage of both markets.
Another, smaller, part of the company’s operations involves the supply of calibrating machines to the rubber belt industry for end-uses such as the offset printing industry, where very precise calibration is required. This provides additional opportunities for technology transfer.
As part of its approach to today’s market, Imeas offers a variety of methods of payment to its customers.
“This is increasingly important, especially in emerging markets where the capital cost of a new line means a lot of money to the company,says Mr de Giacomo. “We have a lot of ways in which we can help.”
The company is also getting requests for secondhand, reconditioned machines and has carried out two or three projects, although not actively seeking such work.
“Replacing a few parts can result in an as-new machine that can run well for many more years – the frames are fine,says Mr de Giacomo. “After all, we started making sanding machines in 1966 and the first one is still running…”

Sign up for our regular news round-up!

Give your business an edge with our Wood Based Panels

Sign up