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Remember the days when molders actually purged their screws between color changes using virgin polycarbonate? I do, and still have a lovely “waterfall-like” purging made of clear Lexan PC tinted gray that we used to make a medical part. In fact, purging between colors and to go from a colored material to a clear material was a process critical to making good parts—and still is.

Purging technology has improved over the past couple of decades so that molders no longer have to use costly virgin materials to purge. Just ask Blackhawk Molding of Sparks, Nevada, a customer of iD Additives Inc. (LaGrange, IL). Blackhawk reported it has improved productivity and realized significant savings in time and materials by using iD’s QuickShots single-dose purge compounds in its injection molding machines.

Blackhawk Molding is a caps and closures molder, supplying the dairy and bottled-water industries with caps ranging from 28 to 55 mm, along with other accessories. With a large number of molds and machines, they need to perform frequent color changes. “Purging and cleaning the screws on our machines is critical to our quality control,” said Jason Ferguson, Project Coordinator at Blackhawk.

After Bruce Lundstrom, Blackhawk’s Plant Manager, saw information on QuickShots in an industry magazine, he asked Ferguson to find out more. Ferguson went online and ordered free samples from iD Additives. “It didn’t take long to see the benefits of using this product,” he said. “It helped make color changes much easier and dramatically reduced our downtime when cleaning the screws.” Quickshots reportedly reduced scrap by up to 60%, slashed downtime by 55% and helped achieve 63% total cost savings. “We loved the results, so we went ahead with a large order,” said Ferguson. Blackhawk Molding is now using QuickShots on all of its molding machines and molds at the Sparks facility.

The single-dose compounds allow operators to purge their machinery simply by dropping the packets into the feed throat/hopper of their machine. QuickShots works with all resin types on all plastics machinery processes, including injection molding, extrusion and blow molding.

“QuickShots has been extremely popular since we introduced it to the industry in 2017,” said Nick Sotos, President of iD Additives. “There is no simpler way to purge resin from a machine than by using QuickShots. It not only simplifies the purge process, but also reduces costs as you only use the packets you need for each application.”

Typical dosage is one ounce per inch of screw diameter, so a 6-inch screw diameter would require the use of two 3-ounce QuickShots. No soaking or temperature adjustments are necessary.

ID Additives is exhibiting this week at PLASTEC West in Anaheim, CA, from Feb. 11 to 13. Visit the company at booth 3840.

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