Archive for category: Case Study

Coating Challenge: Coating for copper heating tubes requiring excellent chemical resistance, thermal conductivity, and a thin film.

Recently, one of our clients called with a project that required:

• A thin film coating of 1-2 mils (this is thinner than the average human hair.)
• Copper substrate. Because copper oxidizes as it heats up, coatings such as fluoropolymers (such as PTFE non-stick coatings) which typically cure at 500° F cannot be used as the copper oxides will result in the coating delaminating (peeling off).
• Chemical resistance. The proprietary process results in some corrosive splatter that will attack the copper.

One exception in the fluoropolymer world could have been the ETFE and ECTFE chemistries, however these tend to be both thicker coatings (15 – 45 mils), and thermally insulative. But the bigger issue was the client wanted to be able to re-coat these expensive parts in the future, which is not easy with ETFE/ECTFE chemistries, especially over copper.

Our Solution:

We ended up recommending HERESITE’s P-413, which is a phenolic epoxy coating. HERESITE has been making coatings for copper products since 1964, when they were the first to apply coatings on aluminum finned, copper-tubed heat exchangers; mostly used in air conditioning and refrigeration systems operating in medium to severe corrosive environments.

Since its installation, our client is reporting excellent results and followed up with additional orders.

For more information on HERESITE and their products, here is a Product Data Sheet (PDF).

What do you do when trail mix fruit is sticking to the chutes and trays of your packaging machine? Extreme Coating Solutions worked with one of our clients recently for a coating solution that fixes this problem.

The chutes and trays I’m talking about come from the manufacturers as non-coated, stainless-steel. However, the fruit in the trail mix eventually starts to stick to the stainless steel during packaging. This changes the “mix” of nuts, fruit, etc. as well as the weight of the packaging. During quality control, these bags get rejected, resulting in wasted product. (Not to mention the downtime for cleanup.)

The Solution

Ultimately, our solution is an FDA compliant, ceramic reinforced Teflon that coats the interior of the trays and chutes which reduces friction and allows for the fruit to stop sticking. The coating choice was influenced by the fact that the almonds in the trail mix are particularly abrasive. Our solution to the problem resulted in faster production because we reduced downtime for cleanup!

Getting the parts to us for coating

The trail mix chutes and trays are extremely expensive to replace. The machine that they’re installed on weighs and dispenses product at the same time. And they can’t ship the parts with a general carrier. With the customer being 125+ miles from our facility, shipping via local courier isn’t the best option either.

The only answer was a creative shipping arrangement. This usually involves someone from their facility dropping the parts off at the home of a sales rep or a meet-and-drop somewhere near Kansas City.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, a scheduled shut-down was the perfect opportunity for replacement of the chutes and trays. But a shortage of people due to vacation time meant a quick turnaround was required. The turnaround was the easy part. We were then left with the dilemma of how to get the chutes to the customer in a timely manner as they didn’t have anyone available to pick them up.

In an effort to quickly and safely deliver the much-needed trays to the customer, one of our coaters packed up and personally delivered the trays directly to the customer. Three days later, I took another round of finished chutes to our customer.

It’s a good thing to get out and physically visit the customer. It’s perfect for discovering what we’re doing right and what we could be doing better. The trip was worth it because the personal tour I was given was fascinating! I was able to see what we do to improve the performance of their equipment and manufacturing processes. Watching the packaging of the trail mix was informative and, in this case, delicious!

You don’t want a sticky mold when making these tires.

However, that is what Extreme Coating Solution’s client was fighting until we introduced them to Dyna-Tek’s nano-ceramic mold sealer and release coatings. After calling Extreme Coating Solutions, out of Kansas City, Missouri, a site visit revealed a 6,000 pound, 8 foot diameter tooling that needed surface treatment that would keep its lubricity despite the rigors of the molding process.

Inherently, these tires are engineered for toughness, and with side walls over 8” thick; getting tires that are not releasing from the molds creates production throughput and efficiency declines as well as quality issues. However, it was the safety issues for the company’s workers that made solving this problem a top priority within top management of this company.

Dyna-Tek called on its certified applicator, Extreme Coating Solutions, to treat the tooling with Dyna-Tek’s DT-420 Mold Sealer and DT-6060 Mold Release coating products. Dyna-Tek’s 420 and 6060 coatings are:

• Applied with a wipe-on process.
• Can be applied on site provided the area is clean, controlled temps of 60 – 75 deg. F.
• Air-cured. The first coat is dry to the touch within 30 min., but to achieve maximum performance properties, should air dry for 5 days. The top-coat, will air dry in 10 minutes, and can be put into production within 12 hours thereafter.

Ultimately, all coatings begin to wear off. The top coat; DT-6060 doesn’t stick to much; except itself. Meaning, it can be re-coated indefinitely to keep refurbishing its lubricity whenever needed. ECS trained our client’s maintenance staff so they can apply the top coat themselves!

For more information on this case study, click here.

Case Study Challenge: Circular saw used to cut PEEK, glass-filled nylon and other materials experienced down-time, cut quality issues.

After seeing the benefits of he Dyna-Tek mold release coatings on their extruding dies, ZL began to look for other areas in operations where the DT products could improve production.

PROBLEM:

One area was their cutting saw station. The problem here was downtime and cut quality due to the heat build-up from the friction on the side walls of the saw blade as it cut through their large blocks of materials. Consequently, the blades would build up material over time which would lead to the operator stopping production to change out the blade.

Additionally, leading up to stopping the cut quality would continually diminish which left a lower quality appearance.

SOLUTION:

Dyna-Tek in conjunction with its approved applicator; Extreme Coating Solutions (ECS) coated one of ZL’s blades with the DT-420, forced cured it at 450 deg. F for 45 min. and then put the blade back in service.

Because the DYNA-TEK clear-coating has a ceramic-chemistry component to it, this accomplished two things:

• The ceramic element results in dissipating the heat faster than an untreated blade.
• The high-release, low coef of friction of the DT-420 meant less drag on the side walls of the blade, meaning less friction; and consequently less heat build-up as well.
• Both of these improvements meant a cleaner cut, and higher quality appearance.
• Down-time was reduced as each blade saw 6X’s longer service.

ZL’s FEEDBACK:

“When cutting with the DYNA-TEK coated 18” saw blade we get less side buildup and melting due to friction.  This has extended our saw blade useful life and improved the cut quality which is highly important to the customer.”

–        JOHN REYNOLDS, QUALITY CONTROL MANAGER