Where our machines already run

Four industries, and the settings we already know for each.

These are the sectors our bead mills serve today in China. We are not reading your industry out of a brochure — we are carrying a proven starting point across, and adjusting it to your grid, your climate and your specification.

All four at a glance

Starting points by industryTypical, not guaranteed. Your solids, carrier and target fineness decide the machine — send those three numbers and we will confirm the row.
Industry	Typical product	Solids	Target fineness	Bead Ø	Machine	Material build
Detergent & surfactant	LAS paste, soap slurry, builder slurries, colour base	40–65 %	D50 5–20 µm	0.8–1.5 mm	RWM-20B → RWM-C80	304 / 316L
Paint, ink & pigment	TiO₂ dispersion, pigment concentrate, printing ink	45–72 %	Hegnor 4–6	0.8–1.2 mm	RWM-P30 → RWM-200	316L / ceramic / PU
Edible oil & food	Tahini, peanut paste, cocoa liquor, premix in oil	50–70 %	D50 15–25 µm	0.8–1.2 mm	RWM-P5 → RWM-50B	316L polished, H1 oil
Fertiliser SC	Suspension concentrate, CS pre-grind, foliar slurry	30–55 %	D50 2–5 µm	0.3–0.8 mm	RWM-P10 → RWM-C100	316L / ZrO₂ / SiC
Small workshops	Cream pigment paste, toothpaste, sunscreen, honey	35–60 %	D50 3–15 µm	0.3–1.0 mm	RWM-N5 → RWM-P5	Ceramic / PU liner

A Detergent & surfactant paste

Detergent work looks forgiving and is not. The pastes foam, they carry chloride, and they are sticky enough to close a screen if the flush line is undersized.

What we grind here: linear alkylbenzene sulphonate and alcohol-ether sulphate pastes, soap noodle slurries, builder slurries on STPP and sodium carbonate, liquid-detergent colour and fragrance bases, and the fine end of washing-powder agglomerates before drying.

What goes wrong, and what we do about it

Foam in the chamber. Low-shear feed pump, a deaeration tank on the outlet, and a chamber outlet that does not drop pressure suddenly.
Chloride pitting. LAS is not kind to 304 at 45 °C. We quote 316L as the working minimum and say why, rather than selling 304 and hoping.
Screen blockage. Back-pulse flush sized for your viscosity, plus a screen slot one step coarser than the theory, because a stopped machine grinds nothing.
Changeover between products. Clamp-band chamber, CIP spray ball and a second liner so a colour or fragrance change is a ten-minute job.

B Paint, ink & pigment

This is the sector that taught us most about seals and screens, because coatings combine everything that damages a machine: solvent, heat, abrasion and a customer who measures with a grind gauge.

What we grind here: TiO₂ and extender pastes on calcium carbonate, talc and barite, inorganic and organic pigment concentrates, printing and packaging inks, mica and pearl effect pigments, anticorrosive primers on zinc phosphate, and alkyd, nitrocellulose and acrylic systems in both water and solvent.

What goes wrong, and what we do about it

Solvent attacks the seal. Aromatic solvents swell FKM. Solvent-based work gets FFKM elastomers and VG 46 barrier oil as a line item, not a surprise.
Pearl and mica destroyed by over-grinding. Larger beads and lower tip speed, and a machine deliberately oversized so it runs at 60 % rather than 100 %.
Skinning at the outlet. Solvent evaporation at a hot outlet builds a skin that blocks the screen. Cooling water is fed in at the outlet end so that is the coldest part of the chamber, and the outlet temperature is alarmed rather than watched.
Colour changeover cost. A second chamber liner dedicated to one colour family pays for itself in solvent and lost hours within a quarter.
Solvent room is a classified area. Ex d IIB T4 motor and panel, static bonding on the frame, and a stainless drip tray.

C Edible oil & food paste

RWM-P bead mill with a horizontal stainless chamber, green guard panels, local control box and a separate inverter cabinet — Food and cosmetic builds ship with a polish certificate, an H1 lubricant list and a documented clean-in-place sequence.

Mouth-feel is a fineness specification. A tahini that reads 30 µm feels gritty next to one at 18 µm, and the difference is the machine, the bead and how well the heat is being pulled out.

What we grind here: sesame paste and tahini, peanut and nut butters, cocoa liquor and nibs, chilli and tomato pastes, garlic and onion pastes, lecithin blended in oil, vitamin and mineral premixes carried in oil, fine calcium carbonate in fat, and sugar-in-fat systems.

What goes wrong, and what we do about it

Friction heat melts cocoa butter and separates oil. Cold jacket water, a machine sized with headroom so it runs below full power, and in severe cases a two-pass layout with an interstage cooler.
Viscosity climbs as the product cools. The pump and the feed line must be sized for the cold state, not the warm one. We ask for viscosity at both temperatures.
Salt and acid in chilli and tomato paste pit stainless. 316L is the floor here, with polished Ra 0.4 wetted surfaces and no brass or copper anywhere in the flow path.
Hygiene documentation. Food-grade FKM or EPDM, NSF H1 barrier oil, a clean-in-place spray ball, drain slope that leaves no standing liquid, and a materials list you can hand to an auditor.
Metal-contamination claims. On white and pale products we move the whole flow path to ceramic or PU, so the iron in your drum comes from your raw material and not from our machine.

D Fertiliser suspension concentrate

Suspension concentrates are the harshest normal duty in this list: an abrasive carrier, an alkaline water phase, a thickener that loves a screen, and a particle-size spec that has to stay stable for two years on a shelf in a hot port.

What we grind here: SC formulations on water with 30–55 % solids, capsule-suspension pre-grinds, wettable-granule precursors, foliar nutrient slurries, chelated micronutrient pastes, calcium and magnesium carrier grinds, and seed-treatment slurries.

What goes wrong, and what we do about it

The carrier eats the chamber. Calcium carbonate and kaolin are abrasives wearing against your liner. 316L alone lasts months; a ZrO₂ or SiC chamber and carbide rotor pins last years. We price both so you can see the difference.
High pH attacks the seal seat. Above pH 11 a carbon seat etches. We fit the metal seat and EPDM or FFKM, and say so on the datasheet.
Thickeners block the screen. Xanthan and HEC hold the screen face. Back-pulse flush with formulation water, not process water, and a slot one step coarser than the beads require.
Particle growth in storage. If the D90 is wrong, the bottle separates on the shelf and the complaint arrives six months later. We grind to a D50 and a D90 target, and report both.
Heat kills the active. Many actives degrade above 35 °C. Two passes with an interstage cooler beats one pass at full power every time.

E Small cosmetic & food workshops

A large share of our customers are not factories. They are a room with three people, a brand, and a product that has to be consistent. That is the same buyer in Lagos, Accra, Dar es Salaam, Jakarta, Cochabamba or Recife, and the same machine serves them.

Typical fineness D50 3–15 µm on 0.3–1.0 mm beads, 35–60 % solids, in a ceramic or PU liner.

What they make

Face and body cream pigment pastes
Sunscreen TiO₂ and ZnO dispersion
Toothpaste and mouth-wash bases
Hair-dye intermediates and colour bases
Soap and shampoo colour bases
Honey, propolis and nut-milk pastes

What they actually need

Single-phase 220 V, because there is no three-phase in the room
RWM-N5 to RWM-P5 bench machine on a trolley
Two interchangeable liners — one ceramic, one PU — so products do not cross
Tool-free strip-down and hand washing
A spare seal cartridge in the drawer, not on a boat
20–200 litres a day, not a continuous line

How we keep the price honest

We sell one machine plus liners, not three machines
PU liner instead of ceramic where the product allows it
Chinese tier-1 motor, with an upgrade quoted if you want it
Video commissioning instead of a paid engineer flying out
Consolidated spare shipments twice a year

Starting a small line? Ask for the three-piece package.

A RWM-P5 lab machine with a ceramic liner and a PU liner, the spare seal kit, and a 40-minute video walkthrough of cleaning, bead charging and seal checks. It is the configuration most of our workshop customers end up buying, and it is cheaper as a package than as three separate orders.

Ask for the workshop package

Not on this list?

If you grind a solid into a liquid, we can probably help.

Ceramic and battery slurries, calcium carbonate fillers, carbon black, iron oxide, flavour pastes, drilling-fluid additives, catalyst pastes, textile pigment prints. Tell us the product and the fineness and we will be straight about whether we are the right shop.

Describe your product Bead mill specifications

Not sure which build you need?

Describe the product and the fineness. We will tell you whether we are the right shop, and if we are not, who is.

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