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Crom

Injection Machines For Mass Production

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Carolina Mike is running 2 of their machines. He's the only one on here I know of that uses them. I do believe they are the standard as far as commercially available machines go. Some manufacturers have built their own as well. 

 

Thank you. I will try to contact him.

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Reading this got me wondering what kind of numbers you want to pour. I have looked into these machines and even had a customer offer to buy one for me to use on his baits. What I found out was it was not for me, I need to change colors a lot during the day and molds too. Could be done on a big machine but takes some time. If I were to get one of these I would have to compete with the bigger company's with price and delivery times. Not going to happen for me. Really hard to compete with them when they sell baits cheap. Smaller is better for me. My prices are higher than the big company's but there is an endless supply of customers that want small runs.

The price of mold will scare you a bit unless 7-10k sound reasonable to you. That is each size and style. Getting them made is a chore too. Not to many choices for big molds. And they are all busy.

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With the right amount of cavities and a good set of large pots it's more than possible. Most manufacturers running the machines want to run the same colour on them all day, Mike used to change half way through the day but I guess that can be a chore. I am using a pair of 2.5 gallon pots and can pump a good number of baits out depending on what the baits are, I can also change colours out fairly quick as well. 

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I thought you might say that. The number of baits my customer had to buy to make it worth turning the machine on was the deal breaker for him. He had to sell a heck of a lot of baits to keep it going. Actually sounded good for me but I don't have a market for 20k worms or 10k other baits a day. A place to store drums of plastic and finished goods. And by taking to Mike awhile ago it is not a machine that you can just let go, it has to be attended by some one to unload and wait for the next cycle to do it again and again. So now you know some of what the machine is about. Not by someone who owns one but one who has seriously looked at it. My way I can produce enough baits to keep most customers happy and do ok for me. Think hard about what you want and you will make the right decision.

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I thought you might say that. The number of baits my customer had to buy to make it worth turning the machine on was the deal breaker for him. He had to sell a heck of a lot of baits to keep it going. Actually sounded good for me but I don't have a market for 20k worms or 10k other baits a day. A place to store drums of plastic and finished goods. And by taking to Mike awhile ago it is not a machine that you can just let go, it has to be attended by some one to unload and wait for the next cycle to do it again and again. So now you know some of what the machine is about. Not by someone who owns one but one who has seriously looked at it. My way I can produce enough baits to keep most customers happy and do ok for me. Think hard about what you want and you will make the right decision.

 

Another thing to look at is it has to be running to make money, if it sits idle it's costing you money. 

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Currently running eight zorn machines. There is a lot more involved than you may think between maintenance, repairs, and general operation. On a standard production mold days run you can expect to burn through 30 to 40 gallons.

Are you running them all by your self or do you have employees?

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Everyone, thank you for your replies

 

 

On a standard production mold days run you can expect to burn through 30 to 40 gallons.

 

I suppose 30-40 gallons for eight machines, not for one? ))

 

Josh, can I ask few more questions..

 

 

- How long does it take to change color?

- How many lures it may produce per day. I understand that it depends on size etc.. But, just in average.

- How often I will need to repair this machine? ) Do you like this machine or better look for another one :)

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I tried to quote the zorn, machine, but never answered me. So I decided to build my own soft plastic injection machine.

this machine can run 12 "x 15" zise molds, this is about 10 lizards of 5 " or 24 stick baits of 5" per cycle, solid colors, laminated, swirls and chrtreuse tails. it requires 120v and 220v AC.

It takes about 20 minutes to cool down, other 20 minutes to change the color and 2 cycles for purge hot runers.

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Currently running eight zorn machines. There is a lot more involved than you may think between maintenance, repairs, and general operation. On a standard production mold days run you can expect to burn through 30 to 40 gallons.

I thought I was jammin with 5 gallons a day =) (on occasion at that, not everyday). Always good to hear from the big guys, keeps us small fry humble. Thanks Josh!

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Crom, if Josh works for reaction, Andre is not gonna like it very much if he answers your questions, so I will try to. If youre talking about doing a complete color switch, which includes a different color plastic and flake, just for the liquid part youre probably talking about an hour to an hour and a half, then you have to run the plastic out of the heat exchanger and depending on the size of the bait and flake this could add as much as another hour. Most companies will quote the amount of baits to be produced in an 8 hour period to be 10,000 pieces. The 30-40 gallons is for one machine, I have run some big baits but use 50 gallons a day. Its no so much repairs as it is upkeep of the machine, machines with pumps have to have the staters replaced often. Depending on what type of pump, staters can be as much as 200-300 dollars a piece, so if you have a two color machine, that doubles. Zorn machines are great, but very expensive and you have to have an extensive knowledge of plastic and how it flows. You get one day of training when you buy a machine, a pneumatic machine will probably run you around 40,000 dollars or more, a hydraulic machine will probly be around 60,000 or more. If the machines are very well maintained, then there shouldn't be many repairs but amatuer mistakes can be very expensive. A lot of times Ray won't quote a machine to someone that he is sure is not ready, the first time I called him he told me I had no need for the type of machine he sells, which was a very big favor he done for me at the time, when I called him back 8 years later, he ageed that I was ready then. If he would've sold me a machine the first time I would have lost my butt. I did get your P.M. if you would like to talk, you can P.M. me again and I will give you my phone number.

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Not to take away from Zorn in anyway, you might be interested in a new design coming from High Rock Molds. I just talked with Kyle at High Rock Molds, here is the info he gave me:

 

It will be a "small scale" production machine, cost will be $17k - $20k and molds will be $1000 - $1500 ea. Cool down time per mold will be approx 30 seconds. Mold costs are reduced because they don't have water ports in them, instead the plates that hold the mold will be cooled (there's a technical name for them, I don't remember it). Kyle could explain it better then I can but I think you get the idea.

 

This system will take up 6 feet x 6 or 8 ft and be on casters so you can roll it around. This will be air fed rather then a pump and will be designed to use a 5 gallon bucket of plastic at a time. For more info, check out his facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/High-Rock-Molds-LLC/1592179457679983

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2 hours ago, hpssports said:

Don't know about the Jacobs machine but we have a modified two color Hot Runner on order from www.hotrunnermachines.com

I looked at your machine, very similar. my biggest question with these is, is there a faster method to transition to another color than, turning off hte machine, allowing the plastisol to cool, cleaning it all out, poring in your next batch of plastisol/heating mixing dye/glitter, etc.. and shooting? right now I have multiple presto pots where I will have 4-5 diff colors heating and I just move between each of them and shoot those colors into the molds they goto. So is can I purchase or do you have a separate method to purchase the plastisol containers and get those pre-heating with other colors while I'm shooting a color in the machine?

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