Newsletter #5 | A peek behind the scenes: How to make a beverage coaster

Station 5: The Board Machine

This series of articles, titled “How to make a beverage coaster,” sees us answer the following question: How are beverage coasters actually made? After the mixture has been mixed in the pulper, it is transferred to the board machine, which turns it into high-quality wood pulp board.

Our Board Machine: A Faithful Servant since 1960

Before the board machine was put into operation in 1960 at the KATZ site in Weisenbach, our beverage coasters were manufactured using a beer mat casting machine. This machine had a capacity of 30,000 coasters per day and worked in a similar way to a motor: With each cycle, the exact amount of groundwood pulp needed for a beer coaster was injected into a cylinder with a screening bottom. After that, the lowered piston squeezed the pulp mixture together and dewatered it.

However, during the economic miracle in Germany, the demand for beverage coasters was so high that the beer mat machine quickly reached its capacity. To cope with the demand, a Fourdrinier machine was put into operation at the Weisenbach plant in 1960. To this very day, this is the machine we use as a basis to make the wood pulp board for our products. Measuring 70 meters in length and with a working width of 2.65 meters, the machine produces around 6500 square meters of board per hour. That equates to roughly eight handball courts.

The Key Parameters: Thickness, Grammage, Moisture Content, Whiteness and Roughness

Each individual step in the paper production process is crucial. From stock preparation to the sheeter, everything needs to run smoothly to ensure a high-quality end product. We pay particular attention to the following parameters during this process: Thickness, grammage, moisture content, whiteness and roughness. These parameters are monitored in a 5-shift operation by seven employees per shift.

If you missed station 4 of the article series “How to make a beverage coaster”, click here