Life-time (Circular Knives)

Why must you frequently change your slitter knives? How can you improve life-time of your knife?

• Wrong knife adjustment (adjustment between top and bottom knife, knife overlap, side pressure, cant angle)
• Slitter jumps (top knife damages the bottom knife)
• Wrong choice of knife quality (top to bottom-knife)
• Knife chips and break-outs
• Knife geometry and tolerances are not in line with the OEM specification and guideline
• Grinding errors and mistakes
• Paper dust 

How to improve life-time
The knife’s life-time on your (re)winder, sheeter or doctor roller is in most cases influenced by the right combination of the material’s quality (top to bottom knife). Provided, that the condition of the machines (e.g. quality of knife holders) allows the usage of premium cutting tools, a life-time without knife changes of multiple months can be achieved, even with high machine speeds (3000m/min).

In reality, wrong knife combinations are often used. Examples are either too hard top knives to the bottom knives or vice versa, a too low or too high knife overlapping resp. a wrong set chord-length, an incorrect cant angle or a too high side pressure. All these factors are having a direct influence to the knifes’ life-time. Slitter jumps are mainly seen by a too low set overlap or an incorrect chord-length.

We recommend:

TKM slitter knife sets consisting out of top and bottom knives, which are produced with narrow tolerances and polished surfaces. All TKM knives fit to your individual cutting application. Most often used knife material combinations are tungsten carbide bottom bands and powder metal steel top knives. For the perfect honing of the sensitive cutting-edge and for reducing the micro-chips, we recommend the “TKM Hyperhone” honing technology for the top knives. Ask our service specialists for the best set-up procedures and the most cost-effective cutting solutions. Book our best practice “slitter training courses”, this will optimize and streamline your cutting processes.