After you install a new felt, it's normal for its dynamic permeability (the combination of airflow and vacuum) to fall. This means the felt is compacting. However, contamination will also make it denser. 
To distinguish between these two possible causes for a denser felt, you need to…

The batt's top layer should act as a one-way valve, allowing water to flow down towards the base, but not back up. Avoid excessive density to prevent dewatering issues at the nip entry. Learn why felt may become too dense and how to prevent it in the article.

The press felt's key role is to remove water from the sheet without damaging its strength or surface quality. However, unlike other machine components, press felts' permeability and behavior change over their lifetime… 

A lot of papermakers come to our website to learn about felt permeability and how it affects the performance of their paper machine. In this blog series, we share a simple breakdown of what felt permeability is, and why it matters. 

The paper machine dryer section is vital for achieving the desired quality standards. Optimizing this section ensures efficient operations and high-quality output. In this blog, we'll explore the journey through the paper machine's dryer section, offering you the best practices for keeping things running smoothly. 

A mill in the Netherlands faced frequent breaks at the pickup roll, about 12 times daily, costing over 7% of production time. Despite trying weekly cleanings, changing doctor blades, and short circulation boil-outs, the breaks persisted. Read our blog to learn how to tackle these problems in-house. 

A 1960s graphic paper machine in the Netherlands, running at 150% of its design speed, faced numerous vibration issues. The fourth press caused felt life to drop to two weeks, and press roll covers lasted just 4-6 weeks, with excessive wear on the granite counter roll. Read more to learn how felt life increased from 4 to 9 weeks.

Focusing on innovation maximizes value from paper machine clothing, and in return, will future proof your mill. While PMC tests and trials may seem inconvenient, they are profitable long-term. Consider these three key principles for PMC trials. Each paper machine is unique, so apply these principles to your specific situation.

It’s the perceived cost and risk of running PMC trials that causes our industry to play it safe. But this status quo chains papermakers to their PMC suppliers, killing innovation and the long-term survival of the mill. We need to break this dangerous paper production habit.

Designing a successful press felt is an art form. One that requires a careful blend of technical expertise, data, and gut feeling from a real human—the press felt designer. I believe a greater understanding of the complexity of press felts is key to unlocking innovation—and in turn, helping papermakers produce more paper.

When a forming fabric misaligns, it causes significant problems and costs, including potential destruction if it hits the machine frame. Continuous corrections lead to excessive wear and high expenses. This article explains fabric guiding principles and offers tips for papermakers to systematically solve guiding issues.

As 2023 ends, it's the perfect time to optimize your paper production. To help, we've launched three new products enabling daily felt tests in just 20 minutes. Gain more data and insights to enhance your paper machine output. 

Recently, we compared the results of another question held during a survey in our most recent and highly successful webinar, How to Assess Press Felts, to the results of the same question in a LinkedIn poll….Well, we ended up scratching our heads when we reviewed the results.

Press felts are the paper machine's lungs. Like a marathon runner with optimal breathing, ideal permeability ensures peak machine performance. However, despite the catchy phrase, "perfect permeability" for a press felt doesn't exist.

Our Fuji pressure-sensitive film aids in investigating press load distribution on paper machines, identifying misalignment, crowning deviations, and roll cover issues. Feltest offers various Fuji Film sensitivities, but selecting the right type can be challenging. This article aims to clarify the selection process.

"Edge stealing": sheet edge sticks to felt at nip exit.
"Sheet stealing": entire sheet sticks at nip exit.
"Edge flipping" or "blowing": sheet edge detaches, sometimes creating a double layer.
"Sheet stealing" is most common. Here are 5 prevention tips.

The forming section can only deliver the “best possible sheet” when the forming fabric lays flat. Waviness, ridges, or wrinkles disturb the weight and dewatering profiles of the sheet and therefore must be avoided. Here are 5 easy solutions against wrinkles and ridges of forming fabrics:

Producing paper is capital-intensive, with financial experts heavily influencing operations. Reducing costs is a key responsibility for Production Managers, and it's essential. However, we must focus on the right type of cost reduction to avoid future expenses that could be detrimental to long-term success.

This article is the follow up on the previous article about Dependency on PMC suppliers. Below I’d like to share the practical principles and actions that spring from an innovative mindset, ensuring a paper mill gets maximum value from its paper machine clothing. You can read them as guidelines in making your paper mill and paper machine future proof, ensuring a competitive advantage.

In the 1980s, press felt performance was judged by the sheet's appearance, with little knowledge of the felt's internal behavior. Nip dewatering introduced the need for more detailed information. Thick, bulky press felts are unsuitable for nip dewatering. This blog post explores the relationship between nip dewatering and the Feltest CaliperProfiler. 

Due to its success, Feltest offered you another chance to attend this Webinar on June 3, 2021: I'll show you how better PMC can really increase your paper machine's output. 

Most paper mills use a mechanical tension gauge to measure the tension of Paper Machine Clothing, mostly forming fabrics. When this instrument is not in a perfect condition, it can cause serious problems in running your papermachine. The 2 most common defects on mechanical tension gauges are a worn sensor bar or a leaking bellow, causing internal friction.

In this blog article, I focus on the signs and consequences of forming fabrics running at a tension too low for optimal performance of your paper machine. One of the causes of low tension is improper use of the tension gauge. 

In two previous articles, I reflected on problems related to too high or too low tension in forming fabrics. In this article, I want to focus on the (im)proper use of the mechanical tension gauge.

Besides removing the most water of all press felts, the pick-up felt has another important task: it has to pick up the delicate sheet from the forming fabric and guide it into the press section. Problems in the pick-up area, often leading to breaks in the press section, are certainly not uncommon.  

When press vibrations take place in the papermaking process, machine speed has to be slowed down. This has a negative effect on output and production targets. Replacing the felt is often the expensive solution papermakers reach for, but it is only addressing the symptoms. Usually, the origins of press vibrations can be found elsewhere in the machine.