Below you will find the more common questions that visitors to this web site have asked about Temper Stretch CTL. If you have a question that you do not see answered below, please ask it at the Site Contact Page.
Frequently Asked Questions About
Temper Stretch™ Cut-to-Length
Q: The TSC video advises use the temper mill up to 4mm. Is that fixed ? We see coil breaks on material up to 7 gage, about 4.5 mm.
Answer: The range for use of the Compact Temper Mill can be raised to 4.5 or even 5 mm. The TSC development defines a much more compact temper mill capacity than a conventional temper mill in order to realize the advantages of lower maintenance, lower operating and lower initial investment costs. But the capacity is certainly NOT fixed at 4 mm.
Q: Are there times when I would want to activate the Stretcher Leveler for lighter gage and de-activate the Compact Temper Mill ?
Answer: Yes, because some end use customers are concerned about a temper mill’s ability to roll the harder scale into the softer substrate. Also, for light gage coils with significant shape deformation, the Stretcher Leveler will get the material fully stress relieved and flatter.
Q: Wouldn't I want the Compact Temper Mill to run thicker materials too since a temper mill can run faster than a stretcher leveler ?
Answer: A temper mill CTL line offers little speed advantage over a stretcher leveler CTL line for material thicker than 5 mm and no speed advantage at all for material thicker than 8 mm. Also, there is the issue of setup time: as the material gets thicker, the time to run out a coil at a given speed decreases while the setup time stays the same. So setup time becomes a more important factor and running speed decreases in importance for thicker material.
Q: You say a fixed shear has lower upfront cost, lower maintenance and closer length tolerance. But wouldn't a rotary shear run faster ?
Answer: First, for thicker coils, the shear is not a limiting factor for speed. For thinner coils, the Temper Stretch CTL Line uses an accumulator pit which allows the Roller Leveler and/or Compact Temper Mill to run at the same speeds as a conventional temper mill CTL line. Meanwhile, the TSC Fixed Shear fires fast enough to not result in a speed penalty.
In addition, many processors running conventional temper mills CTL lines don’t feel it’s practical to run thinner coils because it takes too much time to change out the thick coil work rolls with one crown for the thin coil work rolls with a different crown.
Q: Where can I see a Temper Stretch CTL Line in operation ?
Answer: We introduced the Temper Stretch CTL concept to the marketplace in August 2016, and there are no lines running yet. However, companies are already requesting TSC equipment quotes with the understanding that TSC does not require significant development time because every piece of equipment in the TSC line already exists in CTL lines operating around the world.
Q: What manufacturer is prepared to build Temper Stretch CTL processing lines ?
Answer: Any TMW qualified coil line manufacturer is permitted to build TSC processing lines once they have a manufacturing agreement established with The Material Works, Ltd. (TMW).
We believe it more important to use a coil line manufacturer who builds high performance (robust, fast cycling) stretcher levelers and shears for CTL lines than a manufacturer who builds only temper mill CTL lines. We say that because a good Compact Temper Mill can be built by a number of mill equipment manufacturers and easily integrated into a high performance stretcher leveler CTL line.
Q: Do you see any issues using a TSC line to serve accounts accustomed to receiving strictly temper pass CTL product ?
Answer: No we don’t. First, you don’t have to be concerned about light gage product since TSC can process light gage with the Compact Temper Mill. Then, for heavy gage, we interviewed several service centers who either operate both stretcher leveler CTL and temper mill CTL lines OR who are outsourcing some of their work to a stretcher leveler house because their temper mill CTL line is too busy. These service centers told us that temper mill and stretcher leveler processes for heavy gage are completely interchangeable – that their customer does not care whether their heavy gage was temper passed or stretcher leveled.