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Strangpresse, Triptech: proof of Youngstown’s technologic renaissance
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
The city is no longer just a birthplace for steel companies.
The presence of America Makes, the first additive manufacturing hub created by President Barack Obama’s administration, led to an innovation renaissance.
That renaissance led to the birth of several local additive-manufacturing companies, including Triptech Plastics, a supplier of 3-D printer pellets and manufacturer of 3-D printer filament, and Strangpresse, a developer of lightweight thermoplastic pellet-fed extruders for additive manufacturing.
“The networking and the access to the right people has been invaluable,” said Chuck George, chief executive officer of Kent-based Hapco Inc., an affiliate company of Triptech and Strangpresse.
Hapco’s history dates back to the late 1930s, when the company started as East Akron Tarp & Awning Co. The company diversified its products and changed names until it became Hapco Inc. in 1983 and started to enter into the plastic welding industry.
“Hapco is in many different industries,” said Mike Szugye, sales manager for Hapco.
The industries it serves include roofing, tarp, banner, sign, landfill liner installation, industrial plastic fabrication and oil and gas.
Hapco primarily provides thermoplastic welding equipment. Its business is focused on pressure, temperature and speed.
In late 2013, Hapco received a call from a government agency that wanted to modify one of its extruders. Oak Ridge National Laboratory wanted to know if Hapco’s largest standard industrial extruder could process ABS plastic pellets with 20 percent carbon fiber.
The laboratory was looking to create the world’s first 3-D printed car. The vehicle, known as the Strati, was printed in one piece using direct digital manufacturing in a 44-hour time span. It was assembled by a team led by Local Motors, an Arizona-based motor vehicle manufacturing company.
“They knew within reason they could modify our extruder,” Szugye said.
The experience showed Hapco a path for two other companies: Strangpresse, which happens to be the German word for "extrusion," and Triptech.
Strangpresse, formed in late 2014, serves the aeronautical, aviation, automotive, marine, industrial tooling and a list of other industries.
It supplies just the extruder head and leaves the console it attaches to, such as a robotic arm or crane, up to the company that purchases the extruder.
Strangpresse has three models of extruder heads: Model 19, which has an output of up to 20 pounds per hour; Model 30 with an output of up to 115 pounds per hour; and an unnamed model still in production that will produce up to 500 pounds per hour.
Triptech also formed in late 2014 to supply plastic welding rod for industrial plastic fabrications. Its customers include oil and gas companies, but the downturn in the energy industry switched the company’s focus to making filament for 3-D printers.
To make the filament, Triptech starts with pellets, which are initially dried and then fed into a hopper. From there, the pellets are processed into a molten state through a heated internal auger. The auger creates a liquefied strand, which then enters a cooling bath. The strand then dries and is coiled on a spool.
A machine measures the filament’s diameters.
The industry uses two diameter sizes: 2.85 millimeters and 1.75 millimeters.
“What you are going to see is the materials are going to take a revolutionary step,” Szugye said. “People are going to want carbon filled or glass filled.”
Triptech is one of four worldwide distributors of an Eastman Chemical product.
The pellet product, Athiri 1800, is used to make filament and sold with the extruders Strangpresse makes. The product is of low toxicity, is styrene free and is ideal for use in school environments and for food-grade and medical-grade applications.
Triptech and Strangpresse lease space inside Youngstown Plastic Tooling & Machine, 1100 Velma Court, to make the extruders and filament.
Both Strangpresse and Triptech have offices downtown in the Youngstown Business Incubator, where they are portfolio companies.
When Barb Ewing, chief operating officer at YBI, takes guests on a tour they always seem to know about the 3-D printed car project.
“It’s an extremely prestigious project, and the fact that we have that caliber of technology coming out of this region is the proof in the pudding,” Ewing said. “I give them credit for seeing an opportunity and trying to build around it. They have started to do what companies in technology and innovation do.”
For Ewing, it’s hard to explain the complete impact of America Makes.
“Because of their level of influence, they have provided us and others the opportunity to interface with organizations that we wouldn’t have access to,” Ewing said.
Strangpresse and Triptech continue to receive inquiries from companies and universities worldwide.
“Both have a good growth trajectory,” George said.