Renite Company was founded in 1932 by Harry M. Reynolds (a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan) who saw a clear need for a more scientific approach to the lubrication of glass-forming molds in the manufacture of tumblers, tableware, lenses, scientific ware, radio tubes, block, light bulbs and containers. His company pioneered in the development of mold lubricants, coatings, release agents and automatic spray equipment for hot-forming glass problems. His first production facility was located in a rented building in the 100 block of East Long Street (Columbus, Ohio), then moved several blocks away to 420 East Fifth Avenue. In 1972 a new factory facility was built at 2500 East Fifth Avenue, at the 1-670 Interchange, where it is still a small, viable family-business today, and encompasses 30,000 square feet of production, warehouse, R & D, and office space.
Mr. Reynolds died in January, 1989, at the age of 88. He was succeeded as President and Board Chairman by his son-in-law, Stephen M. Halliday, a 40-year employee of the Company. Mr. F. Eugene Cook is Vice President - Operations, Mr. Leo L. Harding is Sales Manager, and Dr. John Terence Golden is Vice President - Technical. Dr. Golden is one of very few noted tribologists, world-wide, with expertise in this highly specialized area of glass mold surface lubrication. He is the author of many published articles on the subject.
The management group at Renite consists of five employees with a total of 160 years of service to the company. They are experienced and competent "detail" people who communicate and work well together. Major emphasis is placed on research and development, product quality and consistency, reasonable prices and prompt service. When needed or wanted, field service is provided.
Glassware manufacturing can be classified into four distinct groups: (1) Flat Glass, (2) Pressware, (3) Bottles or Containers, and (4) Special Ware such as hand-blowing, sagging, Fiberglass, ribbon-machine light bulbs, block, laboratory ware, etc. Primarily, over the years, Renite Company has involved itself, for the most part, in Pressware and Containers. It also supplies a number of products which are of use to customers in specialty glass manufacturing— although this is a relatively small part of its overall business. Additionally, Renite has been a long time supplier of water-based lubricants (and automatic spray equipment) for the hot-working metals industry. Such developments, many times, find application in the glass industry. Experience in one field aids and complements work in other areas.
In the early days, as well as today, machines used in the pressing of glassware were (and still are) relatively slow moving. The molds on such machines are open, free-standing and accessible for cooling, cleaning and lubrication prior to receiving "hot charges" of glass for "molding" into various shapes and sizes of finished articles.
Renite Company pioneered the first scientifically blended mold spray lubricants as well as the first custom-designed, heat-resistant atomizers (for stationary-spraying), rotators (for automatic rotary spraying) and reciprocators (for automatic reciprocal spraying) on many different kinds of glass pressware machines. Many of these same lubricants, atomizers, rotators and reciprocators are still in use today around the world. A new development is a virtually smokeless mold spray lubricant. The name of Renite is still No. 1 among glass pressware people.
In the more complex area of bottles or containers, however, Renite Company has a complete line of fine quality products, but is not as well known. The story is an interesting and rather involved one dealing, for the most part, with technical explanations.
In the early years, glass bottle-forming machines (like the Miller and Lynch machines) were slow-moving. As with pressware machines, the molds were open, free-standing and accessible for cooling, cleaning and lubrication prior to receiving "hot charges" of glass for "molding" into various sizes and shapes of glass containers. The pioneering of mold spray lubricants and automatic spray equipment for pressware operations, by Renite, was also quite suitable for most early glass container machines. On occasion, there were situations where it was impractical to spray-lubricate such equipment and, accordingly, Renite developed a series of glass mold swabbing compounds in the mid to late 1940's — for special situations. These were a considerable improvement over the homemade mixtures then in use by operators.
Through the 1950's the old-style, slow container machines began losing their popularity, replaced by the newer and faster Hartford I.S. container machines. Unlike their ancestors, the I.S. machines were not only faster in speed, but they were considerably more complex in operation. Molds (blanks or parisons) ran hotter due to several factors: (1) faster machine speeds meaning more bottles per minute and more contact time of molten glass charges with mold metal, (2) less time to blow cooling air on the molds, (3) molds "opening in" toward the hot center of the machine, rather than "opening out" toward the cooler production floor.
On the new Hartford l.S. machines there were six or eight "individual stations," each station consisting of two or four blank (or parison) mold halves, one or two plungers, one or two finish rings and one or two final molds, a total of 30 to 80 areas needing regular lubrication every 10-20 minutes depending on whether the machine was a six-section or an eight-section and depending on whether it was a single-gob or a double-gob delivery. Machine speeds could produce 60-240 bottles per minute depending on machine and bottle size. Molds on this machine received and discharged many more "glass charges" per minute than previous machines.
Accessibility to the moving areas (needing lubrication) was almost nonexistent, but production speeds of glass bottles was increased many-fold and price per gross was greatly reduced. Accordingly, container manufacturers replaced older and slower equipment with newer I.S. machines as replacements became necessary in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. Today, with very few exceptions (in isolated areas of the world), there are few if any Miller JP or Lynch 10 container machines still in operation. The "old guys" have given way to the "new kids on the block" with all of their attendant lubrication problems.
Renite Company saw these developments coming in the late 1950's and 1960's at which time the Company founder made two decisions which were to have an impact in later years: (1) Renite would devote maximum sales engineering time to the design of an effective automatic mold spray lubrication system for the Hartford l.S. machine. The Company's logo emphasizes "Lubrication Engineers". (2) Renite would not embrace the use of sulfur or grease in any of its glass mold swabbing compounds—in spite of knowledge that machine operators were adding such ingredients to standard Renite compounds being purchased at the time.
Upper management (in several top container plants) discussed with Mr. Reynolds their hostility to sulfur and to grease. Several plants went so far as to ban the free use of sulfur on the production floor. Supplies of sulfur and grease were kept, for a while, under lock and key, so that machine operators could not "doctor" their own swabbing "nostrums". Renite's literature and movie films (between 1960 and 1987) reflected a strong bias against both additives. This was the prevailing attitude as the company headed into the 1970's and 1980's — years which saw competition spring up to give the machine operators what they wanted and couldn't get from Renite or from their own plants in some cases: swabbing compounds with sulfur and grease.
Before continuing this profile, it is important to stop and to discuss these additives. They are an important part of the Renite history.
Sulfur has a deserved bad reputation in that sulfur powder thrown on blank molds or equipment, or mixed into swabbing compounds by operators, does pit and attack metal. The roughening effect likely helps the swab-applied coating to stick better and there is also a chemical effect in that sulfur plates out on the metal surface, likely as a metal sulfide layer formed by reaction with the metal, that has "non-stick" (low surface energy) characteristics with respect to glass. Dr. Golden suggested an electron microscope study to test his theory that small to moderate amounts of sulfur, well-dispersed (with Renite's new high-powered homogenizing mixers), would have the desired chemical effect without the roughening. The study, presented as a paper to the American Ceramic Society in 1982, indicated that this was the case, and Renite gradually began to make more use of sulfur, but sulfur-containing products were still considered experimental until the summer of 1987.
Greases, referring to metal soap greases, also have their disadvantages and advantages. Metal soap thickeners carbonize and leave a heavier residue than wax thickeners, and unlike wax residue, it cannot completely burn off. Furthermore, most metal soaps promote oxidation and carbonization of the base oil so that a light oil will leave residue comparable to a darker oil without metal present. Swabbing compounds containing grease/metal soap thus make more of a mess when swabbed, marking the ware and requiring frequent mold changes. Renite F-5, a wax-thickened lubricant containing no metal soap grease, was thus much cleaner than competitive products or homemade mixtures containing such material, and Renite could well boast that it did not use such ingredients. Renite did have the cleanest mold lubricants on the market, but they had to be swabbed more frequently, an inconvenience to the operators, especially so as machines grew larger and there were more sections to swab.
As many in the industry will recall, Renite almost had the perfect answer for automatic mold-spray lubrication of Hartford l.S. blank molds. Some companies do use Renite spray lubricants on rings, but Renite eventually concluded that the design of the Hartford I.S. machine is such that it is not practical to spray-lubricate the blank molds using an add-on spray unit. Spray lubrication of blank molds will have to wait until provision for such lubrication is provided for in the design of the machine itself.
In the summer of 1987, Renite Company arrived at two conclusions: (1) Stop further investigation, engineering and development of an automatic lubrication system for the Hartford l.S. machine. Accept the reality that manual swabbing is a "fact of life". (2) Listen to the operators, and move from the laboratory to the market with more competitive swabbing compounds containing sulfur and metal soap grease.
The Company took positive steps in these two directions, but their efforts were sidetracked by two time-consuming and expensive lawsuits in the early 1990's. By mid 1990's they were marketing a complete line of swabbing compounds and coatings for glass container manufacturing – with or without sulfur, wax-based or grease-based. The line includes products such as smokless mold spray lubricants, shear spray concentrates (which are still undergoing re-evaluation and improvement), shear spray atomizers, dry delivery coatings, scoop lubricants, swabbing compounds and ring dopes (which are still undergoing reevaluation and improvement), and coatings for transfer areas/lehr mats.
It is expected that re-evaluation and improvement of Renite shear spray concentrates, Renite swabbing compounds, and Renite ring dopes will be completed in 1999- that Renite's "catch-up" developments will begin to see better market acceptance and purchase by glass container manufacturers worldwide. A substantial increase in sales and profits should result.
As glass manufacturing faces ever-increasing raw material costs, it is important to maintain and to strengthen ties to those few suppliers who continue to provide reliable products at reasonable prices. Few manufacturers can afford to do business with suppliers whose prices reflect unreasonably high sales, promotional and marketing costs. In time, such manufacturers will find themselves non-competitive in their respective markets.
Today, a fresh, new breeze is blowing across glass container production floors. Renite is a very big part of that fresh, new change. Our management, research and development, manufacturing and sales headquarters are all under one roof in a modern facility with good access to transportation to better and quickly serve you. We retain a lower pricing factor on our product line which includes many new developments. Write, phone or Email us for more information.