Davis-Standard components assist garden hose maker

Pawcatuck, Connecticut-based Davis-Standard says recent feedscrew replacement has boosted production rates by more than 33 percent at a garden hose plant operated by Marion, Ohio-based customer Swan Products LLC.

Swan Products, one of the largest North American manufacturers of water hoses for consumer and industrial markets, installed four new feedscrews on existing Davis-Standard extruders at one of its plants in Canada. On its website, Swan Products says it is “committed to utilizing recycled materials in our products to the greatest extent possible.” From order to installation, the feedscrew replacement project took about two and half months, providing a cost-efficient means to increase productivity, according to Davis-Standard.  

“We were able to replace feedscrews on older machines and improve throughput by over 33 percent,” says Jose Rossi, director of manufacturing, North America for Swan Products. “We appreciate Davis-Standard’s lab facility at its headquarters in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, which enabled us to prove design concepts alongside feedscrew engineers with hands-on experience. They are very thorough in their management and delivery.”

The new designs included one 2.5-inch (50-millimeter, or mm) and three 4.5-inch (114mm) feedscrews. The trip to Davis-Standard’s lab in Pawcatuck involved Swan exploring its need to process both PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and TPV (thermoplastic vulcanizate) resins. During the trial, several designs were tested to determine the best options for outputs and stability specific to Swan’s process requirements. According to Jason Baird, the senior process engineer at Davis-Standard who conducted Swan’s trial, working with Rossi at the lab was essential to ensure desired outcomes without worrying about hypotheticals.

“We have analytical capabilities at the lab that enable us to see what’s going on inside the extruder as we test different feedscrews,” says Baird. “When you improve output rates, you also need to confirm stability to achieve uniform product. Swan supplies garden hoses to major big box stores, so quality and consistency is essential to their business. We were able to verify both outputs and stability while also evaluating every aspect of performance from melt temperature to torque. This gave Swan the validation they needed to achieve immediate results.”  

Davis-Standard says it offers a menu of research and development feedscrew replacement and rebuilding services. Other services include barrel measurement to help ensure dimensional fit and best performance. Davis-Standard systems encompass more than 10 product lines to support manufacturing applications and customers within the agriculture, automotive, construction, health care, energy, electronics, packaging, retail and other industries. The company has manufacturing and technical facilities in the United States, Canada, China, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.