Mar Newsletter
VOLUME 27 NO. 3Gem Equipment manufactures many of the components used to make up the mechanical parts for the equipment in the company’s product line. Little if any effort is made to develop a market for most of these individual components. There are reasons for this lack of sales effort. Most of these parts can be manufactured by any good metal working shop. Two components, used in fryer belts, are manufactured in Gem’s machine shop. One was designed by the wire mesh belt manufacturer and the other was designed by this company with help from the belt supplier. Selling these items to other belt manufacturers would not be ethical. Except as replacement parts, side chains (two different chains) manufactured by this company for blanchers and batter application systems are simply too costly to be sold by themselves. The very long life of these chains is the only reason they can be sold even with the original equipment. Side chains from 2 worn out batter belts are now being reused on new belts.
Recently, this company developed an upgraded wear strip designed to replace the standard extruded snap-on UHMW wear strip. The extruded material comes in rolls and has a full length slot on the underside to fit over the edge of either a ¼ or 3/8 inch thick flat bar. The flat bars are normally installed using a herringbone pattern in a conveyor bed with the ¼ or 3/8 inch edge up. This configuration provides an economical, low friction surface to support most types of conveyor belting, including wire mesh and PVC. Side pressure exerted on the flat bar by the sides of the wear strip provides most of the force necessary to hold the extruded UHMW wear strip in place. A bolt or a pin is used to secure the leading end (relating to direction of belt travel) of the wear strip to the flat bar. Fastening just the leading end of the wear strip allows it to expand without forcing the center of the strip off the flat bar. The extruded UHMW wear strip is not satisfactory for all applications. There is considerable evidence that the extruded wear strip has a reduced life at blanching temperatures and, in addition, tends to fail around the fastener.
These 2 factors led to the development of an upgraded wear strip for mounting on the edge of flat bars. This upgraded wear strip is machined from solid UHMW and is much taller than the extruded strip. This extra height serves two functions: The groove starts about ¼ inch from the leading edge of the wear strip. This provides a closed end on the groove, which helps hold the wear strip in place on the flat bar. This configuration greatly reduces the chance of the wear strip coming loose and moving down the conveyor with the belting. The leading edge of the 5/8 inch wide, 1 ½ inch tall wear strip is sloped to aid the entry of belting onto the strip. Two years ago, the first machined wear strips were installed to replace failed extruded wear strips on a large pasteurizer. The failed strips had only operated for about one year. Proof that heat is a factor in the short life of the extruded wear strips is provided by the life of these strips in the cooling section of this same pasteurizer. After 3 years, the original extruded wear strips are still in operation in the cooling section. A power transmission supply house has authorization to sell the machined wear strips.