Yup, this one gets the Wow factor folks. Many of you maybe familiar with tooling paste from years back. Well, it’s been a lot of years since paste was introduced for composite tooling applications and it has traveled light years in terms of product and equipment quality.
AIN Plastics + RAMPF GROUP + Tartler Machines
AIN Plastics has been selling RAMPF GROUP Tooling board for many years, in fact, we are one of the largest distributors of tooling board in the country. So, when we had the opportunity to take on RAMPF GROUP’s new paste materials we wanted to be on board right away.
RAMPF Group, a strong leader in the tooling board manufacturing business developed three versions of RAKU-TOOL® Close Contour Paste; each is a 1 to 1 mix ratio that applies easily, even on vertical or overhead surfaces at thicknesses up to 40mm. The paste applies to numerous substrates including acrylic, wire mesh, foam, or tooling board to name a few.
When machined, the cured paste creates very little dust and finishes to an extremely smooth surface that can be finished as needed.
To make their product even more successful RAMPF knew having the right dispensing equipment was also a must. So, RAMPF Group worked diligently with Udo Tartler, founder of Tartler machines, who began creating two-part meter mix equipment in the early 1980’s.
Mark Davidson, RAMPF Sales Manager noted that “Tartler is on a constant path to create new and better equipment and to refine their existing equipment. They have listened to the needs of both the end user as well as the product manufacturers, and that’s why we wanted to partner with them. He went on to say “once we were confident in our product and working with Tartler we brought the process to AIN Plastics who immediately saw the value.” Unlike some past machines that ran on high pressure, Tartler equipment runs on a safe low pressure system. The equipment is easy to use, cleans up within 15 minutes, and outputs a smooth steady flow of paste at a consistent viscosity. The RAKU-TOOL® Close Contour Paste and Tartler dispensing machine is a far cry from the early days of epoxy tooling paste systems.
AIN Plastics Offers Custom Application Services
In addition to supplying RAKU-TOOL® Close Contour Paste, John Shepherd, President of AIN Plastics, announced that AIN is now available, on a per job basis, to complete custom applications of RAKU-TOOL® Close Contour Paste for customers at the AIN Madison Heights facility. In fact, by the time of this post, AIN has already completed four large paste application projects. John Shepherd noted, “We listened to our customers who voiced concerns about using paste in the past. The first concern is the time to apply the paste and the time until it can be machined. Typically the two-part epoxy paste is fully cured in 24 hours. But, for many places running an assembly line the cure time has been a limiting factor in their ability to put this product to use. Places that don’t do large volume also noted the cost of the equipment as a factor. We are looking to be an asset to our customers and we realized this was a great opportunity to fill a gap in an industry that can really benefit from this product.”
The value to building custom shapes can be a huge savings in both time and material. It also eliminates issues such as glue lines and how to handle left over pieces of board and the end product is fantastic. By using the new service at AIN Plastics customers can take advantage of the benefits of the using paste without investing heavily in assembly line time or in equipment purchases. Meanwhile those companies that make the investment in the dispensing equipment can be assured of excellent product availability and customer support.
At a recent demonstration of the product dispensing, visitors were all impressed by the quality and ease of use that RAMPF Group, Tartler Machines, and AIN Plastics are now able to provide with this new joint venture of product, equipment, and customer sales and support.
For more information on RAMPF Groups RAKU-TOOL® Close Contour Paste and other tooling products please visit our website: AIN Plastics Composite Tooling Materials
OR –
Download a .pdf
Technical Data Sheets for RAMPF Group RAKU-TOOL® Epoxy Close Contour Paste:
CP 6050
CP 6070/6072
CP 6100