Kastalon Engineered Mandrel Sleeves Provide Greater Productivity, Profitability


Kastalon engineers match assorted textured surfaces and material hardnesses to the application.

Kastalon offers mills and processors highly engineered polyurethane mandrel sleeves, filler plates and filler rings with material hardness and surface options to match customer needs, protecting coils from damage

Kastalon brings 50 years experience in coil processing to the task of engineering a new offering of application-specific, proprietary formulated polyurethane mandrel sleeves, filler rings and filler plates. These products are designed to adapt the mandrel to handle coils with larger ID’s and addresses the problems of damage from creasing, scratching and marring at mills, service centers, toll processors and fabricators alike. Such damage is expensive for any coil handling operation, especially when the metal is prepainted or must maintain optimum cosmetic surface integrity. By the use of Kastalon mandrel sleeves, filler rings or filler plates on the uncoiler or recoiler, the inside wraps on coils are protected from metal to metal contact. More finished material is produced or usable, as a result.

Mandrel sleeves are custom designed with engineered surface hardnesses and grooved or smooth finishes, depending on the particular application. Full sleeves are usually recommended for the recoilers, while filler rings and filler plates are more often utilized for uncoilers.


The design process begins at the company website, where a detailed needs-assessment questionnaire can be completed, followed by a discussion with Kastalon engineering to formulate the proper chemistry, surface and material hardness for the application.

In use, the proprietary chemistry of the Kastalon Polyurethane material withstands the stress caused by the weight of the coil, then reforms when the mandrel is collapsed back to the rest position, owing to the inherent memory of the Kastalon engineered material. With other materials now on the market, sleeves will often sag due to memory loss and the resulting gap can cause significant coil damage. Correspondingly, additional labor and line downtime result from this condition, as realignment of the coil, sleeve and mandrel is needed. Through the true and precise sizing of the mandrel sleeve, combined with the proper material hardness and surface texturing, a Kastalon sleeve can last up to 10 times longer than rubber, fiber or even other commodity type polyurethane products, according to company research, available on request.


Mandrel sleeves, filler rings and filler plates allow coil processing to be accomplished more efficiently, whether on uncoil or recoil reels, at mills, service centers, toll processors and fabricators.

Kastalon mandrel sleeves are non-marring, cut-resistant, abrasion-resistant and offered for friction fit, requiring a separate “keeper”, or bolt-on installation. Company engineers consult customers on the amount of lubricant, cleaning solution or other coating chemistries present in the process, as this will determine the particular formulation selected. Furthermore, Kastalon offers these mandrel sleeves in a wide variety of grooved or soft surface finishes to meet the specific tension and pressure requirements of a processor’s uncoil/recoil apparatus. Special dual-durometer sleeves are also available for mills and processors where “head-in” damage is often encountered.

For most uncoilers, Kastalon filler rings or filler plates can provide the optimum performance for the tension, pressure and metal contact requirements typically present.


Kastalon engineers match assorted textured surfaces and material hardnesses to the application.

The design process for Kastalon mandrel sleeves can begin with a visit to the company’s website, www.kastalon.com, for completion of a needs assessment questionnaire. Detailed information is gathered on this form, allowing the Kastalon engineers to calculate the best sleeve design and chemical composition to suit the job.

Follow the Money – A Mandrel Sleeve’s Truth

When my children and I are talking about various social, political or other issues, I often find myself using the phrase “FOLLOW THE MONEY”.  It’s funny how often this simple phrase holds true. Many answers to some of life’s question can be answered by this phrase.

Why should mandrel sleeve’s be any different? An example of this hit me in the head when I was talking with a steel producer in New Carlisle, IN. They didn’t think that they had any issues with the life of their mandrel sleeves. They shared with me that they consistently got about 8 months to a year of life on their sleeves and then the sleeve needed to be replaced due what they called “sagging, like it had no rebound or memory”. The plant manager said “It’s been that way as long as I have been here, I don’t feel we currently have any issue’s with the life of our Mandrel Sleeves”. So I asked can we “Follow the Money”?

Because they kept such detailed records on the longevity of their sleeves, it would be that kind of record keeping that would allow us to “Follow the Money” and prove to them that they should and could get a longer life span and more efficiency out of these sleeves.

So we offered the “Kastalon Challenge” – Provide us with all of the specifications, including the application and environment the mandrel sleeve will be operating in. Purchase and run the engineered Kastalon Mandrel Sleeve and if it does not last longer than your current supplier’s Mandrel Sleeve, we will supply them with another mandrel sleeve for no additional cost.

Kastalon manufactured a mandrel sleeve for their high speed steel processing line. At the rewind end of their line they have two rewind mandrels that work in tandem with each other. This would make for a great test. They installed the Kastalon sleeve and their current supplier’s sleeve as well at the same time. After the sleeves were tested for only four months it was clear on inspection some “sagging” was already showing on the current supplier’s sleeve, however, the Kastalon sleeves showed no wear or sagging whatsoever. So “ Follow the Money”. It was clear that Kastalon sleeves did in fact last longer and their assumption that they had no issue with their current supplier sleeves was not adding any profits (MONEY) to the bottom line.

They placed an order for two more Kastalon sleeves giving them a total of three. A year later they ordered one more from Kastalon. This gave them two in use and two spares that they would rotate in and out of production every six months for inspection.

A year later they placed an order for two more sleeves just as a precaution because they have never experienced mandrel sleeves that would last that long. As of today, all four of the original sleeves are still in rotation and the two ordered a year later are still in the storage warehouse yet to be used.

This is a high speed line that usually runs around 2,800 feet per minute. This customer has averaged running at around 78 percent of capacity. You can imagine the amount of times our four sleeves have expanded and collapsed in the past 5 years.  And to think they thought they did not have any issues with their mandrel longevity. I am so glad that we “FOLLOWED THE MONEY”