PACKING FOAM INTRODUCTION
Foam Packing Equipment Introduction
Learn About our Foam in Place Packaging Options
Hello I’m Jim Train of EZ-flow foam systems here to tell you how easy flows foam-in-place equipment can save you money and reduce your loss from breakage during shipping.
If you have used foam in place before you know how valuable this process is for protecting your products in transit. You probably don’t like being forced to buy from a single source and being forced to pay high prices for your foam chemicals and supplies. We offer you a range of choices that can substantially lower your total cost and still give you the same convenience and protection that you’ve come to expect from foam-in-place.
If you’ve never used foam in place before you may think it’s too expensive. We can show you by using our equipment we’ll save you money over the packaging methods you’re using now and how our equipment will actually pay for itself usually in a year or less.
First let’s show you what the foam in place process is all about. The full setup consists of the two foam chemicals, the isocyanate A and the polyol resin beat. The drum pumps the heated hoses the dispensing gun and the controller assembly.
The two chemicals must be at the correct temperature and pressures in order to mix properly and make good foam. Once the pumps are activated and the temperatures are correct you cut a piece of poly film to line the inside of your box then shoot the foam into the poly going around the inside perimeter of the box first then doing the middle.
Then fold over the poly film while the form is rising and take the pieces to be shipped and place them in the box, letting the form rise up and around it. Now take your second piece of poly film making sure it’s plenty big enough, poly is cheap waste the poly don’t waste the foam, and put it over your item lining the inside of the box again then you’ll shoot the foam to make the upper cushion.
Now fold over the poly again close the box and hold the lid shut after about 30 seconds. The foam stops rising and you have a perfect two-piece clamshell cushion that perfectly fits the object you’re shipping and the inside of the box.
How good is the protection? Let’s see. So how did our fragile glass vase do? Looks pretty good to me.
We’ve helped customers to ship many different types of fragile and expensive items. Whatever your application is, from glassware to large cast iron pumps we’ve done something similar before and we can help you.
How much does this type of protection cost? Let’s compare it to two other common methods of packaging. Pelaspan commonly known as peanuts costs anywhere from 15 to 21 dollars per bag. A bag is 14 cubic feet, so your cost per cubic foot of packaging is about a dollar to a dollar and a half per cubic foot.
How good is the protection you get from peanuts? Let’s see. I’m going to fill this box and we’ll put our vase in the box, close it and shake it a bit. We open the box and find the device is settled to the bottom where the peanuts no longer offer any protection against shock from below. In other words after the vase settles to the bottom if we drop this box of vase breaks. Not much protection for your money plus the peanuts get all over the place and it’s messy and really irritating.
Now we consider bubble Pat. A roll of 24 inch bubble pack costs from 40 to 50 dollars and the roll is 20 cubic feet. Bubble pack costs from $2 to $2.50 cents per cubic foot. The protection is pretty good, but it’s expensive and it’s pretty labor intensive. It would take me five minutes or so to wrap this vase more than twice as long as it took me to shoot the foam cushions.
Peanuts cost a dollar to a dollar and a half a cubic foot bubble pack costs $2 to $2 and a half a cubic foot and foam in place costs about a dollar per cubic foot, the lowest price of the three.
Your average price for the foam chemical is two dollars and fifty cents per pound in 55-gallon drums. The most popular density is 0.4 pound per cubic foot which means that 1 pound of chemical makes two and a half cubic feet of foam that makes one dollar per cubic foot and you can see that the foam in place process is faster and easier than either bubble pack or peanuts as well as being less expensive.
Our equipment is designed to be simple basic easy to use and easy to maintain. It’s completely modular so if one component needs to be replaced it’s easily detached from the rest and easily replaced.
Everything is designed to be user-friendly as well as user serviceable. Our competitors don’t give you the customer much credit for intelligence or ability, but we know that you have a whole facility full of expensive equipment that you maintain every day.
Our equipment is no challenge at all to your maintenance people. If you do need help call us our technical people can resolve most problems with you during a short phone call. If you do need replacement parts we will ship them the same day.
We always ship parts the same day we get the order, if you need it the next day it’ll be there anywhere in the United States no excuses. We’ll be happy to discuss your particular application and give you a customized proposal for the equipment and the chemicals that you need.
You’ll see that you’ll have a range of choices and we’ll help you determine what will work best for you. Call us or email us today we look forward to hearing from you.