Above: The press room at Pax Machine Works.
October, 2025- Incorporated in 1948 by Oscar Pax, Pax Machine Works Inc. in Celina, Ohio, started as a farm machinery repair shop that served local customers and became a source for metal stampings in the 1960s. Fast forward to 2014, when Pax Machine needed to replace its below-press steel belt conveyors, the shop contacted sister company Pax Products Inc., also in Celina, to see if it could develop a floor-mounted version of the company’s existing EGD conveyor offering.
The Pax Products’ EGD conveyor is an electrically driven, oscillating-type conveyor that uses a motorized, elliptical gear drive in which the gears are in a sealed oil bath.
The new offering that the company developed was labeled EGDF (elliptical gear drive, floor mount). When Pax Machine tested the initial EGDF conveyor, says Justin Muhlenkamp, maintenance supervisor for Pax Machine, the test involved dumping a large bin of interconnected scrap through an opening in a stamping press bed.
An illustration of an EGDF conveyor positioned below a stamping press.
“They filled the entire press bed and looked at Pax Products’ president and asked what to do,” Muhlenkamp adds. “He said, ‘Turn it on. See what it does.’ That pile just continued to go down with each stroke, and it slowly moved all that scrap out of there until it was gone.”
Pax Machine now has 19 EGDF shaker conveyors at its 455,000-sq.-ft. facility, which houses 28 stamping presses ranging in capacities from 100 to 1,200 tons, he notes.
SCRAP CONTAINMENT
According to Muhlenkamp, the low profile of the EGDF conveyors allows them to be attached to the support ribs inside the press bed, which enables a conveyor to be closer to the press bolster and helps contain the scrap.
“The EGDFs that we have underneath the presses are just strictly for scrap, and the EGDF design eliminated the belt replacement cost and jamming issues that we had experienced with their hinged steel belt conveyors,” Muhlenkamp says.
The oscillating conveyors need much less maintenance than hinge belt ones, which require cleaning the inside of the conveyors, checking bearings and other tasks, Muhlenkamp explains. In contrast, the main maintenance activity for an oscillating conveyor is changing the small quantity of oil that bathes the elliptical gears. “We change the oil every five years, and it comes out looking new, so we are looking into extending the life of the oil going forward.”
Patrick Ontrop, sales and marketing manager for Pax Products, says that 90 percent of the time, customers use an EGDF conveyor for removing scrap from below stamping presses, lasers and plasma cutting machines, with the remainder for conveying parts. The EGD model is used 60 to 70 percent of the time for scrap.
Pax Machine also uses many Pax Products EGD conveyors, and these conveyors are attached to press bolsters and can operate numerous scrap and part trays at the same time. Muhlenkamp says Pax Machine was initially unsure if it would have a need for the EGD shaker conveyor, but the design does work well for the shop and overcame the issue of replacing the worn belts and having dedicated belt conveyors for each die.
A system consisting of three EGDF conveyors to transport scrap along the length of a plant. BOTTOM: An EGDF conveyor is typically mounted either to or below the floor and it has a single tray that conveys material away from the conveyor drive.
MANUFACTURING COMFORT
Furniture manufacturer La-Z-Boy in Dayton, Tennessee, is another user of the EGD and EGDF conveyors, says Greg Yirga, manufacturing process engineer II. In addition to the metalforming work performed at the facility that houses 29 acres of production and related activities (and employs about 1,400 workers), the company transforms foam, fabric, its own kiln-dried lumber and other components into finished products.
La-Z-Boy’s relationship with Pax Products started when the furniture maker purchased a low-profile belt conveyor from the company, Yirga says. “It was priced competitively but, more importantly, it would fit where no other conveyor at the time would. Over the years, we bought at least 20 variations of their conveyors.”
Prior to purchasing oscillating conveyors from Pax, he notes that the manufacturer was using a pneumatic shaker conveyor from a different company to handle scrap from stamping presses, but it couldn’t handle the parts. “Once the part fell into the chute, we attempted to blow it out of the chute. It worked but not well.”
Yirga says he first saw the EGD conveyor at a trade show where the company was also displaying a cutaway model of the drive unit to show how it worked. “It just really intrigued me—the motion it provided and the reliability of the gears.”
After that, Yirga says he had the opportunity to tour Pax’s facility and “see the care and quality that they put into virtually everything that they build.”
La-Z-Boy purchased its first EGD conveyor in 2016 for a 200-ton stamping press, he says. “It has run flawlessly, and it has run two and sometimes three shifts since that time.” The manufacturer has since acquired another EGD for a second 200-ton press and bought an EGDF conveyor for a 400-ton press that is in the process of being installed.
FOCUS ON FLEXIBILITY
For the most part, the EGD conveyors are removing scrap, Yirga says, and La-Z-Boy operates some dies in which scrap and parts are removed simultaneously. “These offer a lot of flexibility that you don’t have with other conveyors.”
An aerial view of Pax Machine’s complex in Celina, Ohio.
He adds that the EGDs are mounted to the rear of the bolster plate, and mounting requires drilling and tapping four holes into the machine body and mounting it semipermanently with bolts. “The shaker mechanism itself is a little big, about 6 in. tall, but that sits behind the press below the bolster, so it doesn’t cause any interference getting things in and out of the press. It doesn’t get in your way to do die setups or maintenance.”
As previously noted, maintenance on the conveyor is minimal, with an occasional oil change. “The good news is I never heard maintenance complain about them,” Yirga says, “so that pretty much tells me I made a good choice.”
To prevent an operator from forgetting to turn on the power for a conveyor, Yirga explains that the electrical system is tied into the press so when the press is running, the conveyor is running, instead of having to plug the conveyor into a switch to turn it on and o separately. If the press is running and the conveyor is not, scrap will pile up quickly and potentially severely damage the press or die. “For whatever reason that shaker stops operating while the press is running, it will throw a fault and kill the press until we can identify what the problem is.”
He says La-Z-Boy plans to install two new presses in the next two years. “If I get the opportunity to do that, then I will include these Pax shakers when I order the presses.”
La-Z-Boy, 423/847-6043, la-z-boy.com
Pax Machine Works Inc., 419/586-2337, paxmachine.com
Pax Products Inc., 419/586-6948, paxproducts.com
