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Flexyform manufactures components for women’s lingerie and delivers to famous brands such as Playtex, Lou and Sarah Lee. A Minac 6 Twin from EFD Induction helps Flexyform maintain its quality and cost levels.
Many bras and corsets are underwired with flexible steel wire that serves two purposes: it shapes the bra to match prevailing fashions; and it makes the bra comfortable to wear. To prevent the wire from damaging the fabrics, both ends are coated with plastic or rilsan. Flexyform has chosen an EFD Induction Minac 6 Twin to preheat the wire ends prior to coating. The ends are preheated at about 350°C by scanning through two approximately one-meterlong hairpin shaped coils, and then crossing a container of fluidized rilsan powder. The induction coils allow a production rate of thousands of parts per hour. Batches are quite small, 2000 to 5000 parts, as each bra size requires a specific wire length.
Flexyform had previously used infrared technology for preheating. But the Minac 6 Twin solution offers much easier and cheaper maintenance. Also, induction heats the wire first, resulting in much better curing of the rilsan.
Infrared is still used for postheating, to smooth the rilsan surface coating.