Belt Skimmer Improves Quality Control

For a precision metal tubing manufacturer, producing a product that meets precise tolerances is not good enough. Keeping customers satisfied also means the tubing must be free of any residue from various chemical solutions used during fabrication.

With a wide variety of customers, their products can be found in many applications: automobile rocker arms and cam shafts, lawn and garden equipment, magazine tubes for rifles and shotguns, and more. For each application, a close tolerance and a clean, residue-free tube is delivered.

Keeping the tubes free of chemical residue, however, is challenging.

After arriving at the plant, the stock is degreased and placed in a dip tank containing sulfuric acid. Next, it’s coated with zinc phosphate, drawn, machined, and degreased a second time in a sodium hydroxide solution. Finally, it is neutralized in an alkali bath and protected with a synthetic oil coating to prevent rust.

During the process, chemical residue floats on the surface of the tanks, oil rests in the middle, and water nearest the bottom. This combination presents a unique challenge, because it’s critical that the chemical residue does not move downstream from one dip tank to another.

The Problem

To remove the residue, employees hand skimmed the tanks on weekends when the plant was shut down. Hand skimming was messy, time-consuming, costly, and inefficient. Despite solid efforts, it never allowed for a truly effective separation of the oil and the chemicals, and it was not possible to recycle any “clean” oil back into the process.

Belt Skimmer Solution and Measurable Results

Looking for an alternative, the decision was made to install a Tote-It® Portable Oil Skimmer from Abanaki Corporation on a trial basis. The belt skimmer utilizes a continuous belt and wiper system to remove up to 12 gallons of oil per hour from a liquid’s surface.

The skimmer’s capabilities rely on the differences in specific gravity and surface tension between oil and water, which allow the belt to attract oil and other hydrocarbons from the fluid’s surface.

The 4″ wide belt operates on a motor and pulley system attached to a stabilizer bar immersed in the liquid. After traveling over the head pulley, the belt passes through tandem wiper blades where oil is scraped off both sides of the belt and discharged through a 1-1/4″ ID hose.

The belt skimmer provides continuous oil removal without requiring employees to manually skim the tanks. By removing floating oil from the surface, the system helps maintain cleaner process fluids and reduces the amount of oil that can carry over between treatment stages. This allows the manufacturer to spend less time on manual cleanup while supporting more consistent production and quality control.

The switch from manual to mechanical oil skimming resulted in immediate benefits. Dip tanks remained cleaner, and there was less residue carry-over from tank to tank. The need for weekend overtime spent hand skimming? Eliminated. Material costs and downtime also decreased, since the oil is able to be recycled longer and tanks need to be drained and refilled less frequently. Finished product quality has improved, resulting in greater customer satisfaction. The skimmers have become an important part of the plant’s quality control process.

Because of the Tote-It’s success, the decision was made to buy two of Abanaki’s Oil Grabber® Model 8 Skimmers with 8″ wide belts. These units operate on the same principle as the Tote-It, but have the capacity to remove up to 40 gallons of oil per hour.

Today, the tube manufacturer has earned an ISO 9000 certification, something the implemented mechanical oil skimmers played a key role in.

DOWNLOAD ABANAKI TOTE-IT® PORTABLE OIL SKIMMER BROCHURE

Abanaki Corporation