One of the many challenges in manufacturing today means competing on a global scale. Often, the bottom line rests on the need for efficiency, while maintaining both speed and quality. If you can’t provide the finished product at the right time and at a competitive price, your competition will.

Today, many companies rely on laser, plasma and oxy-fuel cutting as part of their core manufacturing processes, which can also be a major bottleneck in efficiency. Huge quantities of smoke and slag are created with each cut of the torch. Smoke must be vented efficiently to provide a safe work environment for employees, while the slag produced from the cutting process must also be dealt with. Hour after hour, day after day, slag builds up under the cutting table and must be disposed of. Removing the slats and shoveling by hand takes hours, not to mention this process shuts down production and is a dirty, potentially dangerous job.

Therefore, in 1998, Missouri Valley Steel, a division of Owen Industries, invented The Slagger: “The most effective system on the market for the removal of smoke and slag from thermal cutting systems.”

Modern plasma torches can eject material into the table at over 45,000 degrees, potentially destroying everything is its path. Over the years, Missouri Valley Steel has built thousands of Slagger tables, and has amassed more experience than anyone in the industry, letting us efficiently contain and control this energy. The Slagger has no moving parts under the table. Other systems use chains and cables that can slide right over the slag, break or get snagged in the slag. These constant breakdowns bring the cleaning cycle to a dead stop. The Slagger uses a rack & pinion system that moves the blade through the table. The rack is completely shielded from damage.

The average Slagger table can be cleaned in about five minutes, so when it is time to clean your table, it’s time to release the Slagger. Here’s how it works: The cutting machine is run to the start position at the back of the table, and The Slagger blade is switched on. This patented blade pushes the slag through the table, opening the zone divider doors along the way, leaving a clean surface. The blade pushes the slag into a pan at the front of the table, and when the slag pan is full, it can be dumped into a waste bin, even during cutting. The Slagger even cleans heavy slag from oxy fuel cutting. This blade has just pushed over a ton of slag to the front of the table. The Slagger blade is also useful for pushing out small parts that drop into the table. The bottom line is when your thermal cutter can cut more throughout the production day, there is more profit to the bottom line. This means that the Slagger can pay for itself in about a year!