Feature Articles

A Shop for All Reasons
When Dennis Doane started his new metal fabricating endeavor in 2003, he selected the name A-1 Fabricators and Finishers for his Cincinnati-area company. It also helped years later, now that he has added a powder coating line to his repertoire.

Environmental Group’s Chromium 6 Study Called ‘Bogus’
California Department of Public Health: “The data are problematic at best.”

Power Up to Cut Down on Energy
 Electrocoat rack stripping is a substantial cost to coaters, so it is imperative to use practices that reduce high energy requirements and identify techniques to minimize these costs that contribute to the electrical contact defects.

Getting a Good Finish Begins with a Great Start
Virtually all metal parts and many plastic parts have some sort of finish applied to them. These finishes are applied to improve appearance, increase corrosion resistance and enhance wear resistance.

Smooth Operators: Attaining Isotropic finish through chemically accelerated vibration
 It seems recently there has been more talk about the advantages of an isotropic, non-directional finish on machined surfaces obtained through a chemically accelerated vibratory process.

Open for Inspection: DuPont '20 Group' Peer Reviews
The concept is simple: Several times a year, bring together a group of non-competing powder coaters to a fellow member’s plant and have them go through the inner workings with a fine-tooth comb, reporting observations in a no-holds-barred format designed to improve efficiencies, quality and bottom line.

Be All You Can Be
For fabricators, the finishing line is just the beginning of a new era in today's market. The days of simply cutting, bending and welding metal components into assemblies and delivering them to a customer in two to three weeks just don't exist anymore, nor with original equipment manufacturers need tighter turnarounds for their parts.

Benefits of Painting
Coatings can be applied in a variety of ways, from e-coating to a brush. With all these options, why use traditional paint?

Benefits of Powder Coating
If you’ve done your homework, carefully analyzed your options and decided to use powder coating as a surface finish, where do you start?

Tech Notes

Pre-Colored Stainless Steel Improves Product Design, Productivity
Sandvik Materials Technology has rolled out a pre-coated metal strip steel intended to boost productivity and reduce environmental constraints associated with plating and coating in multiple industries.