More Innovation from Martin Cairncross Engineering-

The company’s products are well known and accepted throughout the metal decorating industry as being precise, reliable and long lasting, having enjoyed a 35 year history, exporting to over 100 different countries. Over this period they have manufactured and refurbished all the popular coating rollers such as Crabtree, Mailander, LTG, Ratcliff, Wagner and Metalbox etc. In addition they manufacture printing cylinders or refurbish used cylinders to customer requirements.

Unique to Martin Cairncross Engineering are the now well established “Extra Hard Duty” scraping cylinders which are a dramatic improvement over the existing cylinders giving longer times between regrinds. These cylinders have proven to be ever more popular and demand is increasing year on year, having been adopted by major companies like Crown Cork, Impress, Ball Corporation and many more using white titanium coatings.

A more recent development has been the Pneumatic “Fingertip Touch Flexible Blade” Scraping System which was first introduced to the metal decorating industry by Martin Cairncross Engineering at METPACK 2008. This gained the company the ‘runners up’ Award for Innovation 2008. This flexible blade system applies only fingertip pressure, evenly along the blade length. This relatively gentle contact between blade and cylinder gives the longevity. The result is a clean scrape almost immediately and given the quick change over time of the blade any break in production can be limited to about 5-10 minutes. Thus great savings are made where previously it was typically 30 minute to 60 minute loss of production for blade changing. The result is an enormous cost saving providing a payback within months rather than years.

A more unexpected result of using the Flexible Blade System has been the extended blade life which has proved to be much greater than that anticipated. So far the record stands at 2.75 million sheets before the blade needed changing. Of the 2.75 million, 250,000 were on white titanium.

Also built into the design is the ability to use blades which have been reground to the point where they can no longer be considered for use in a conventional system. The Martin Cairncross Engineering development permits the use of much narrower blades and in fact they can be used right down to 48mm, unlike the normal minimum blade size of 87mm. Thus the number of new blades purchased each year is reduced to about 25% and one blade could be made to last for up to two years.

The Martin Cairncross Engineering pneumatic system has now been adopted by such giants as Crown Cork, Impress and many more.

 Mist detection system for coating machines:

The major problem in coating tinplate is that one side of the sheet can be contaminated with a mist of lacquer from the compression cylinder which makes the sheets unusable. The device we have developed has a range of sensitivity which can be set to the required quality for a particular can. ie: food cans would be zero contamination down to industrial cans which would be able to withstand a greater contamination.

The system is capable of being  set to a level so fine that a fingerprint can be detected on a compression cylinder. Scanning of the cylinder is carried out by means of a sensor which sweeps the surface of the cylinder from side to side. Once a problem is detected the device can stop the line and sound an alarm , or, simply inform the operator of the problem.

The wastage within the industry on lost tinplate through this type of contamination is immense, and costs are very difficult to quantify, as a coating line will coat up to 6,000 sheets per hour, all of which could be scrapped. The Mist detection system is a much needed breakthrough in quality control, as can-making companies can face massive claims from the public for food contamination. The system would reduce insurance costs and tinplate loss.

Other items manufactured at their factory are the Scraper Blades themselves as well as gears for the synchronising of the printing machine cylinders. These gears are tested using a sophisticated test bed which has been purpose made. The test ensures consistent registration during each revolution of the gears.

Whatever the product, Martin Cairncross Engineering is proud to put their name to it and all cylinders are despatched with a ‘C of C’ and stamped with the Cairncross Seal of Approval.

In short, Martin Cairncross Engineering stands for quality and reliability and they go to great lengths to guard their good name and reputation.