A visit to the brush industry at Plast03.

Covering 12 halls, filled with stands offering a vast amount of machinery and equipment for the manufacture of plastics in any industry, my feet were crippled by the end of my visit.

The ‘Plast’ exhibitions change venue each year and return on a 3 year basis. This year Italy was the host in the large Fiera Milano complex. With a net exhibiting area of 71.33sqm, 84% was covered by machinery, 10% by raw material and 6% with finished products. Although we think Italian manufacture when we consider plastics, there were 675 foreign exhibitors out of 1703 exhibitors in total. Interestingly the foreign exhibitors came from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia and the Far East.

I visited the Borghi stand that showed a working BR/32 machine. This automatic horizontal filling machine for the production of brooms and brushes held the regular attention of a large audience. With a work cycle performed on three stations simultaneously drilling, filling, loading and off loading. The machine runs two products per cycle that are moved from one station to another by a turret system. This machine is capable of producing up to 900 tufts per minute. On the stand were Enzo Ferrari, Paolo Pellicciari Romano Biagi and Massimo Raimondi. They told me that they had a very good response with a great deal of visitor interest.

Multibase were keen to show their TPE material to its best with examples of many different types of applications not least seen in many toothbrush handles. Having recently been acquired by Dow Coring their TPE division is being looked after by the division in France.

Giorgio Galli and Aldo Mingozzi of Techno Plastic had a busy stand. They showed the DVD of their range of extrusion lines. Their complete lines of extrusion machinery are of great use to Broom and Brush manufacturers as both models Fil 75 and Fil 90 transform cheap waste into very high quality monofilaments for brooms and brushes The investment can be repaid in a very short time, when considering the extremely low cost and ready availability of the cleaned flakes of plastic bottles and food containers against the cost of the pure polymer granules. The Fil 75 and Fil 90 are versatile in that they can also extrude virgin polymers such as Polyester, PBT, PET, Polypropylene and also, upon specific request, polyamide.

Simoni, manufacturers of quality industrial brushes since 1830 from Zola Predosa in Bologna, Italy, had an interesting stand. Showing a wide range of their products, including strip, cylinder, wheel, disc and spiral brushes, Mr Del Sarto informed me that they made all kinds of industrial brushes also to customer specifications.

At the Kraiburg stand I spoke to Willi Molter who explained to me the benefits of SEBS and SBS, the Thermo Plastic material that gives the grip to many products including tooth brushes and many household brushes. Their company have been serving our industry for many years and the quality of their product is well known.

Nuovo Larsetta of Parma, Italy, with 30 years experience, showed quality monofilaments that had been produced by their range of extrusion machinery. Not only do they make a complete line but also offer cutting, reeling and wrapping machinery. Their complete lines are for the production of PVC, PPN, PE, PET and PBT monofilament for brooms and brushes as well as other applications.

Arburg, the producers of fully electric injection moulding machines, had an impressive stand with many machines in working process. A large amount of visitors were fascinated by their high precision machinery and were able to discuss technical matters in detail with the Arburg experts.

I took some pictures of the stands I visited and these are shown in our Picture Gallery on the Home Page. Please take a minute to see pictorially how interesting this show was.

Although I did not have time to visit all stands at the fair, due to lack of time or pressure of visitors, I can honestly say that this successful exhibition is well worth attending. The next time in Milan will be in 2006. However, Brushexpert.com will make a note of the next show on our Trade Shows page as soon as we discover the dates and will circulate a preview nearer the time. We look forward to seeing you there.