Removing doctor blades can be a challenging task. The function of a doctor blade is to scrape glues, wood pitch, stickies, and fibers from rolls. These materials work into the blade holder to complicate blade removal. After a shutdown cycle, the blades become very difficult to remove. To add risk, the blade is worn and extremely sharp. Without the proper tools, pulling a sharp blade from a holder with compacted fibers, glues, and wood pitch is a safety risk. 

There are two forces required to remove a doctor blade: grip force and pull force.  It is not uncommon to require the use of an external power source such as a tow motor or come-along cable to generate enough pull force to remove a doctor blade. The grip force of current tools are not great enough to overcome the pull force required to extract a doctor blade. Therefore, blade changes can take hours and consume valuable resources during a shutdown. Too often, blade removal attempts are aborted prematurely for these reasons, leaving worn out blades in place.

With a clear picture of the inefficiencies of the conventional tools, one of our front line team members developed a successful blade removal tool called the BladeShark™ Doctor Blade Extractor using three design requirements:

1. As the pull forces increases, the grip force must also increase.
2. The design needs to be robust and modular.
3. It must be rugged enough for mill use.

The following video link depicts the BladeShark™ doctor blade extractor in action.