Shaftless Machines

Shaftless Machines for Large, Heavy, and Difficult Reels

Shaftless wire handling machines eliminate the axle shaft entirely — the reel is lifted and held in place without threading a center shaft through it. This makes a fundamental difference when the reels are too heavy to safely thread onto a shaft, too wide to fit the shaft, or arriving from an extrusion or drawing line without stopping to change a shaft between every reel. Graham International shaftless machines cover the full spectrum from high-speed automated extrusion takeup to heavy-duty shaftless payout for the largest reels on the floor.

The H6T20-STM Shaftless Take-Up Machine is a mobile shaftless take-up with no axle shaft to handle — the operator runs it from a wheeled Mobile Operator Station that docks at the machine, carrying all reel and traverse controls plus a large measuring device readout on one 10-inch display. Mobility is customer-supplied power, 2 MPH max. recommended, with fork pockets and onboard storage built into the frame. It handles reels up to 72 inches in diameter by 42 inches wide with a 10,000-pound accumulative load, ships standard with the M200EE measuring device and a stretch wrap dispenser, and is available in pull configurations from 6,000 to 40,000 pounds.

The E125T20-STA is our stationary shaftless take-up, bolted to the floor rather than mounted on wheels — the right choice when a machine has a permanent position on the production floor. It handles a 60-inch by 38-inch, 10,000-pound reel at 20,000 pounds of pull, with hydraulic pintle arms for loading and unloading reels. Like the H6T20-STM, it runs from a Mobile Operator Station, plus a dedicated safety foot switch for hands-free control at the machine.

Shaftless machines are the right tool when: reels exceed the practical weight limit for manual shaft handling; reel arbors are too large for standard shaft diameters; production speed requires fast reel changes without stopping to thread a shaft; or the wire is coming off an extrusion or drawing machine continuously and must be taken up without a manual spool change interrupting the line. If you are handling the heaviest or fastest production applications in wire and cable, shaftless equipment is usually the most practical choice.

Graham International manufactures both shaftless takeup and shaftless payout equipment, and can configure shaftless systems into integrated takeup-payout lines for wire processing operations. All shaftless machines are built in Michigan, USA, with the same wearproof materials and heavy construction that define every Graham International product. Contact us with your reel sizes, weights, production speed, and application requirements — we will specify the right shaftless configuration.