The Most Effective Way to Clean Troublesome Check Rings

The best purge gets into every little tight space, edge and crevice. And wouldn’t it be nice If you could get a look at every twist, turn and obstacle molten resin encounters on its way to the mold. Yet, a complete tear down is unrealistic every tome you change resin or colors.

So how do you ensure you “get it all” and don’t contaminate the next batch of parts?

The check ring challenge

In our travels to help molders solve various molding issues, check rings and the area behind the feed throat receive more than their fair share of ire. Check rings in particular accumulate degraded resin, hampering production.

The check ring prevents plastic from being blown back during the injection phase of the molding cycle. Yet this same process allows small bits of resin to degrade and stick to surfaces around and in back of the ring.

Choices for effectively purging the check ring

We have found chemical purging compounds to be more effective than mechanical purging compounds or high-velocity injection shots.

Mechanical purging compounds are formulated to “scrub” surfaces and remove degraded resin and staining.

Some molders use high velocity injection shots, repeated over and over, until a visual inspection shows resin comes out clean.

These “brute force” tactics can work in some instances, but are not consistently effective at a obtaining a thorough cleaning of troublesome components.

On the other hand, a chemical purge works differently. It seeps and expands into tight areas around the check ring, dislodging the degraded material or color build up. Experience has shown this is a much more efficient purge. When a routine tear down of components is needed, you can see the difference. Chemical purges routinely out-perform other methods to get into those hard-to-clean places.

Slide Products offers multiple chemical purge products and makes samples available for testing. Slide Products will also send a purge technician to your facility to help you troubleshoot and develop the best purge solutions for your applications.

Learn more about mold releases, cleaners and rust preventives