That’s how they make paper and a lot of other flat goods like tape. The manufacturer makes these gigantic rolls then there’s this entire industry called converting where a company, a converter, takes it and process it down into a finished product. They may add adhesives, lamination or printing to it during the process.
You can go to a store and buy 3M tape but 3M doesn’t actually make it like that. They make a 12ft wide, 10,000 ft roll that someone buys and forklifts into a machine that cuts it into a bunch of smaller rolls that you can buy
Those machines are referred to as slitters. I designed and built 2 for 3M Abrasive division back in the 1990’s. Talk about a process that involves less than reliable hardware, (I never met an air bar or pneumatic web sensor I didn’t hate), and enough wishful thinking to achieve the speeds 3M wanted them to run at that would make an Alchemist proud. I was constantly amazed that my designs even worked at all.
That’s how they make paper and a lot of other flat goods like tape. The manufacturer makes these gigantic rolls then there’s this entire industry called converting where a company, a converter, takes it and process it down into a finished product. They may add adhesives, lamination or printing to it during the process.
You can go to a store and buy 3M tape but 3M doesn’t actually make it like that. They make a 12ft wide, 10,000 ft roll that someone buys and forklifts into a machine that cuts it into a bunch of smaller rolls that you can buy
Those machines are referred to as slitters. I designed and built 2 for 3M Abrasive division back in the 1990’s. Talk about a process that involves less than reliable hardware, (I never met an air bar or pneumatic web sensor I didn’t hate), and enough wishful thinking to achieve the speeds 3M wanted them to run at that would make an Alchemist proud. I was constantly amazed that my designs even worked at all.