TKM – The Knife Manufacturers

For more than 100 years, the TKM Group as a family business, stands for quality and sustainability in products and services. As the world market leader, it is our ambition to develop highly efficient tools and solutions with innovative ideas and advanced technology, all while setting sustainable trends. The satisfaction of our customers, from the craftsman’s workshop to the global industrial company, has always been and still is the focus of our activities.

Maximum service life and optimum cutting edges with reduced dust formation

We guarantee optimal customer proximity and competent support through our worldwide network of our own sales, service and production companies as well as through the high qualification and continuous training of our employees. Our motivation is, always, to find the best solution for our customers.
We take knowledge and experience from many industries and apply it to our products and services for the tissue paper industry.

We transfer these experiences to our customers, therefore increasing the quality of products, optimizing production times and reducing customer cost. In the last editions of TissueMAG you find detailed articles about our well known Log Saw Blades, CBN grinding wheels, bimetal anvil and perforation knives. In this edition we focus around Operational Safety when handling cutting tools.

Summary

Operational Safety has developed enormously in recent years. In many places, safety shoes, safety glasses, high-visibility vests, safety gloves, bump caps and hearing protection are standard when working in production and converting departments.
Nevertheless, accidents occur still today from time to time when handling cutting tools, due to a variety of causes.
TKM has dealt with this topic intensively over the last 10-15 years and today offers various products to make the handling of cutting tools even safer.

The details

The type of knife that carries by far the greatest risk of injury is the Log Saw Blade. It must be changed frequently and is extremely sharp both, during installation and removal. In addition to the general rules for installing and removing Log Saw Blades, three things have a major impact on the risk of injury:
a) The cutting edge protection (only during installation).
b) The blade guard (during installation and removal).
c) The type of safety gloves.

1. Even today, you can still find many Log Saw Blades on the market that only have a cheap plastic cutting edge protection. This gives the impression of safety that does not exist. Even a light touch on the edge protector causes the blade edge to cut through it. TKM has been using a cutting edge protection with a metal “Backbone” for about 15 years. This is considerably more expensive, but it withstands even quite hard contact. Accidents with a new blade have no consequences in the best case, but at least they are significantly reduced.
2. Today you can find many different types of blade guards on the market, different materials and durability. TKM has designed a simple and effective, but at the same time lightweight and high-quality blade guard. Especially the opening mechanism of the flap and the fastening screws are simple and designed for long durability.
3. Safety gloves which are used in most of the plants fulfil the today‘s safety requirements but with the razor-sharp log saw blades injuries are still possible. Safety gloves which are purely made from a stainless steel mesh, which protect the operators much better, are very slippery and do not give the user any sense of touch. TKM developed, together with a safety glove manufacturer, a customized version which gives the user a sense of touch, with the fine metal mesh inside (including the fingers) a significant higher grade of safety.

Contact TKM and try it out

During 2020/2021 we added two more tools, to be closer to our customers:
The TKM Group App, available for Apple and Android, includes a trouble shooting of the most common problems with the log saw blade application. All our customers can use the app for free. Try it out. To start, we build up a simple but efficient TKM performance centre. TKM performance centre is an easy access channel for our customers to industrial internet applications and remote services.
Our experts have a deep understanding of the cutting applications of your tissue roll converting lines. With remote connections and tools, we provide the needed support and guidance without delay – and more broadly than before.
The structure of the website has been completely adapted and designed to be more user-friendly, but not only that, it now offers our visitors an absolute added value. In addition to our range of services, we offer you a detailed desktop solution manual. Discover more and visit our new Solution Finder now.