Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic

Set up, operate, or tend machines to extrude or draw thermoplastic or metal materials into tubes, rods, hoses, wire, bars, or structural shapes.

Job Task

• Tests physical properties of product with testing devices, such as acid-bath tester, burst tester, and impact tester.
• Measures extruded articles for conformance to specifications and adjusts controls to obtain product of specified dimensions.
• Examines extruded product for defects, such as wrinkles, bubbles, and splits.
• Replaces worn dies when products vary from specifications.
• Installs dies, machine screws, and sizing rings on machine extruding thermoplastic or metal materials.
• Starts machine and sets controls to regulate vacuum, air pressure, sizing rings, and temperature, and synchronizes speed of extrusion.
• Loads machine hopper with mixed materials, using auger, or stuffs rolls of plastic dough into machine cylinders.
• Operates shearing mechanism to cut rods to specified length.
• Studies specifications, determines setup procedures and selects machine dies and parts.
• Adjusts controls to draw or press metal into specified shape and diameter.
• Selects nozzles, spacers, and wire guides, according to diameter and length of rod.
• Weighs and mixes pelletized, granular, or powdered thermoplastic materials and coloring pigments.
• Reels extruded product into rolls of specified length and weight.

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