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Austrian moldmaker GmbH has expanded at home and abroad. It opened an office for sales, service, and mold repair last year in Lake Geneva, Wis., and a second service center in Phoenix, Ariz. (haidlmair.us). The firm also recently expanded its Nussbach headquarters plant with a new building dedicated to machining of very large molds for garbage bins, recycle collection containers, and other big containers for agricultural or industrial use. This adds 10,800 ft2, or 10%, to the company’s existing facilities at Nussbach. As pictured here, the new hall has room for two large milling machines (one is installed at present) with a working range of up to 8 meters, drilling capacity for boreholes up to 2.2-m deep, and ability to support pieces weighing up to 88 tons. The company started making molds for very large bins in 2011 with an 88-ton tool for a four-wheeled, 1100-liter waste container to be molded in a 5500-metric-ton press. The company is considering purchasing a 3200-m.t. press for mold tryout (up from 1500 m.t. currently).

Haidlmair is a family-owned firm started in 1979 and grown to over $50 million annual revenue. Besides large bins, it is strong in automotive, large appliances, and technical parts, but its particular specialties are beverage crates and pallets. A recent development is crates with a special milled-in textured surface and in-mold labeling to create a nostalgic, wood-crate appearance (photo with sales manager Roland Gradauer). The firm has expertise in gas and water injection, hard-soft overmolding, and thinwalling or lightweighting of large parts. It is currently developing rotating center-stack tools for overmolding.