At the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Identify and describe typical components involved in the sheeting of paper
- Describe the typical flow of material through the paper sheeting components
- Identify and describe the safety hazards and safe work practices associated with sheeting
- Identify common personal protective equipment that should be worn around sheeting equipment
The following key questions are answered in this module:
What are the machines required for sheeting paper?
An unwind stand, slitters, a cross-cutter, a wrapper and labeler are the main components for converting paper. Different conveyor types are needed to transfer the paper between machines.
What are slitters?
Slitters are round metal blades that rotate and slit the paper web coming from the unwind stand to the desired sheet width.
What is the cross-cutter?
The cross-cutter is a large roll with blades that cuts each web to the correct sheet length as it rotates.
How are the reams wrapped?
Each ream is fed into the wrapper where a sheet of paper is wrapped around the stack of paper. The ends are folded in and glued shut.
What are some safety hazards of sheeting equipment?
There are a lot of sharp parts and pinch points.
Below is a transcript of the video sample provided for this module:
A slitter is a round metal blade that rotates and slits each web lengthwise. The slitters are evenly spaced across the machine to create the desired sheet width. Each slitter is equipped with suction to reduce the amount of airborne dust. If the final product needs to be three-hole punched, a special perforation unit can be added and enabled. After the slitting blades, the webs enter a cross-cutter to be cut width-wise. The cross-cutter is a large roll with blades on it that cuts each web to the proper sheet length as it rotates. Once cut, the sheets are moved using a series of belts.
The belts deliver the cut sheets into pockets. The number of pockets must correlate to the number of slitting blades. Machines can range from 2 to 16 pockets. As the sheets pile up in each pocket, they are held in place by a finger. Once enough sheets have been accumulated, the assembly removes the stacks of sheets from the pockets and places them on a pair of conveyors. The conveyors split the reams into two streams, and send them to be wrapped.
Use the additional resources and links below to learn more about this topic: