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Blogmaster: Dr. David Roisum

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Web Handling Requires Balls

Posted by David Roisum on May 15, 2011

We owe an enormous debt to Sweden, though it took 10 visits and 30 years to learn this.  It was some copious mix of arrogance and ignorance on my part to assume that the US is the web handling capital of the world from which flows the most important innovations.

However, the most important web handling innovation was probably the ball bearing, without which rotating machinery, not just web machinery, would be exceedingly handicapped.  It is true that journal bearings and bushing are used, but only in very niche applications.  It is true that related inventions remotely similar go back to the Middle Ages.  However, the first modern ball bearing was invented by Sven Wingquist in 1907.  The company producing them, SKF, is still prominent in the field.  My education in the matter was facilitated by touring the Tekniska Museet in Stockholm, one of the very very few technical (as opposed to merely science) museums in the world.  A similar and a bit grander is the Deutsches Museum (of Masterpieces of Science and Technology) in Munich.  Anyway, just a few of some other Swedish inventions you might have heard of include the following

Dynamite (Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize)
GPS (one major component anyway)
Milking Machine and Milk Separator
Paper Packaging for Liquids (TetraPak)
Propeller
Turbo Powered Automobile Engine (Bengt Gadefelt at the SAAB)
Safety Match
Spanner Wrench (aka, crescent wrench)
Telecommunications (before the iPhone there was Eriksson)
Zipper  

Posted in: Design, History, People, Rollers
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Blogmaster

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Dr. David Roisum

Dr. Roisum is a well-known authority in the area of web handling and converting. He has authored seven books, including Winding, Rollers and Web-Handling and has coauthored or edited several others. He was a technical editor for Converting Magazine with a monthly column entitled "Web Works." An accomplished professional speaker and instructor, Roisum has been praised for his skill at translating highly technical information into a common sense practical reference. Dave has been honored by TAPPI with their Finishing & Converting Division Award, Thomas W. Busch Prize and Finest Faculty awards and is a TAPPI Fellow. Dave received his Ph.D. from the Web Handling Research Center where he later became an Industrial Advisory Board member.

Dave has worked for the Beloit Corporation as a designer of winding machinery and later as a manager of research, and for Kimberly-Clark as a converting expert serving all business units. He is now a principal of Finishing Technologies Inc., providing consulting services to more than 300 clients who convert or manufacture: paper, film, foil, nonwovens, textiles and many other materials. He has accumulated much practical experience working in nearly 1,000 plants over the course of more than three decades.