Redmond Gary Australia was contacted by Angus Flexible Pipelines Australia Pty Ltd to design and manufacture a suitable system to spool custom lengths of flat hose from large warehouse stock spools onto smaller spools to meet customer length requirements.

The system had to be flexible enough to handle a wide range of different flat hose types, mounted on a range of different size spools. RGA modified a 1200mm wide 1.5t Drum Stand and supplied two Drum Stands with a capacity 3000mm diameter x 1200mm wide and a maximum spool weight of 750kgs. Each spindle is mounted on rolling element bearings and provided with drag brakes.

One electric hydraulic power pack and one drum drive was also provided. The second drum stand was pinned together using a standard link system. In addition, a special hydraulic trolley was provided to avoid staff having to lift the spindle into the hose spool.

The spool of flat hose is lifted out of the packing box by using a sling through the spool center and lifted by a forklift. It is then lowered until it just makes contact with the floor and using the hydraulic spindle loading trolley, the spindle is inserted into the spool center.

After the spool of flat hose is lifted into the non-powered drum stand (by lifting the spindle and spool using the spindle lift points and a forklift), a second empty spool is placed onto the powered drum stand. The flat hose is spooled off the large spool onto the empty spool using a drag brake on the large spool and the powered rotator on the empty spool until the customer length has been dispensed.

The system works very well and totally eliminates manual handling.