Slidematic’s New 6 Die Cold Former

Through our acquisition of Seward Screw in June of 2016, we bought our largest, to date, multi-die header, a Sakamura BPF-660.

This header is capable of handling wire up to 33MM (1.3″) in Diameter and parts up to 210MM (8.25″) in Length. While Seward is only 20 miles from Rockford, it was a multi-day journey in March of 2017 to relocate the header. It’s never as easy as to load it onto a trailer to move, we utilized our maintenance team to unwire and disassemble key pieces so it could simply fit through the building doors. The real test came when we had to load, unload and relocate to its new home. The BPF-660 weighs in at 230,000 lbs, which meant we required special equipment to move it around both shops’ floors. The cranes you see in the time lapse are designed to upright railcars in the event of a derailment. We required two to assist moving the header into our building. Once it was inside our walls, we thoroughly cleaned and painted it; after all it is over 20 years old. We then put our maintenance team back on the task of rewiring and assembling the header so we could continue making production parts.

We hope you enjoy the (much condensed!) time-lapse of this process and look forward to your continued and new business.

Thanks!