Star Corrugated (CONT’D FROM PAGE 26)
the world, including South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Ger- many, and Egypt. It also hosted a Great Southern Paper Company Con- verters Council meeting to show off its new corrugator. In 1996, die cutting volume had increased to the point where a second rotary die cutter was necessary. Because a significant volume of die cuts was E-flute pizza boxes, Star sought a state-of-the-art vacuum transfer machine with the latest peripherals. Based on its experience with Langston equipment, and the number of Langston’s en- hancements that had been piloted at Star, Etra selected
was created, a large crane hoisted the equipment through the doorway. In this way, the entire dry end was hoisted aboard in a single day, followed by the wet end. The 98-inch 850-foot-per-minute corrugator started up in June of 1987, and a new Saturn 3 miniflexo by year end. During that year, Linpac on Long Island shut its doors and much of its business came to Star. Star acquired used Thermoguard prefeeders and Mosca bundlers which inau- gurated long relationships with those companies. By the
A street view of Star Corrugated Box Company established in 1925. Below, the property consisted of the original facto- ry including additions in 1937, 1948, and 1957 (A), the paper warehouse built in 1957 (B), and an existing property that was acquired in 1998.
The consoles that controlled the Marquip dry end.
end of the decade, DL&D Container and three smaller lo- cal corrugators also went out of business and their volume was absorbed by Star. The year 1991 saw the advent of Alternated Rule 41. Recognizing an opportunity, Star gutted its testing labo- ratory and reconstructed it to maintain current TAPPI con- ditioning standards. The lab retained its box compression machine but acquired all new L & W testing equipment. Due to its high storage capacity, and its purchasing power, Star was able to shop around and design the most cost-ef- fective board combinations meeting this new standard. In the same year, the 280 single facers were replaced by 380 models, allowing Star to add E-flute to its mix, and the 1965 vintage right angle flexo folder gluer was replaced by a 28 axis Saturn 3 machine from Langston. Subsequently, upon Langston’s acquisition of Staley, this machine was retrofitted with Rotofold and was the beta site for this feature on Saturn FFGs. Due to its state-of-the art equipment and proximity to New York area airports, Star hosted visitors from around
the new Titan die cutter equipped with Thermoguard pre- feeder and Accustak, and an automatic breaker and pallet- izer from Pallmac. Upon entering the number in the Thermoguard con- sole for an order that had been run previously, it would communicate with the entire line to set up that order au- tomatically. As part of the Langston contract, Star inserted perfor- mance language, specifically referring to E-flute and pro- duction rates, and outlining an acceptance trial. That was fortunate, since this installation was a debacle, so much so that its crew dubbed it “The Titanic.” After some startup issues, the peripheral equipment performed as intended. The die cutter, however, suffered from poor registration and vacuum transfer and ink system issues. After several years during which Langston attempt- ed to correct the inadequacies, Star finally gave up and insisted that the acceptance trial be performed. This was conducted under the supervision of Underwriters Labora-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 30
28
www.boardconvertingnews.com
April 21, 2025
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online