B&K® — A history...........................and a future

Past

B&K® was founded in 1956 and specialized in corrective levelers and roll forming systems. In 2000 B&K® was purchased by the Formtek Metal Forming group with the roll forming manufacturing and engineering being transferred to Formtek Cleveland and the B&K® precision corrective levelers and high speed uncoiler technology being transferred to Formtek Maine. There are literally hundreds of B&K® levelers in use today, located in over 30 countries.

Present

Upon receiving the rights to the B&K® leveler, Formtek Maine placed it into it's extensive research and development program and began analyzing what improvements might be necessary to equip the B&K® leveler package with cutting edge, state of the art technology. Mechanically it was decided to re-engineer the 5- hi and 6 -hi leveler configurations with floating intermediate rolls. This concept traps the intermediate rolls between bronze wearite plates and utilizes journals on the ends of the rolls. This design allows the end user the ability to grind the work rolls to clean them (this is a common maintenance task with all levelers, usually performed annually). When the work rolls are ground the circumference of the roll is decreased and this poses a problem for inferior machines that trap the intermediate rolls in journals as now there is a space difference between the rolls. The B&K® design allows the intermediate rolls to drop right into position onto the resurfaced work rolls and once the upper back-ups are adjusted, there are no space differences to deal with between the intermediate and the work rolls.

A completely new control platform was designed to allow all of the settings in the B&K® leveler to be accomplished through the HMI (touch screen) interface. The HMI (Human Machine Interface) also provides other operator benefits as well. A complete maintenance manual is provided as well as a complete operator thread-up training manual and a complete diagnostics package has been developed. A help screen has been integrated to allow the operator a base reference setting based on incoming material surface conditions.

Future vision

As the B&K® Precision Corrective Roller leveler has gone through these extensive upgrades, Formtek-Maine has positioned this rugged piece of equipment to offer you the highest quality, lowest cost, assembled in the USA — Precision leveler for your capital investment, one that will serve you faithfully and reliably today and into the future. If you have any specific questions regarding the B&K® Precision Corrective leveler, please give us a call today and speak with a member of our team of knowledgeable, trained application engineers and see how the B&K® Precision roller leveler can provide your enterprise with "Electric Productivity™".