Perspectives: Send Me a Letter
Write me, email me, fax me.
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Write me, email me, fax me. I sound like a desperate mother admonishing her college-age-child whose only correspondence is to ask for money. Instead, I'd like to tell you about a new feature that Products Finishing is offering, beginning this month. We will now publish letters to the editor. Since the introduction of email, we seem to receive so many more comments and questions. This is good. It helps us to know what our readers are thinking, what they are interested in, and what they want to know more about. We thought perhaps our readers would like to know what other readers have to say.
Several inquiries and commentaries have led to stories. Readers have written in to tell us about how they have installed a new system that has increased productivity and/or lowered costs. We have had comments from people with new twists on old ideas or processes. We have had readers complain that we don't provide enough information about certain finishing disciplines. I agree with that one, but often it is difficult to find stories on certain applications. Do you have a story? Let us know.
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Some letters we receive are just off the wall. There have been people asking about how to paint their driveway and other concrete items. Another one asked how to paint a slate fireplace. I usually pass these on to Carl Izzo, our painting guru, who is kind enough to answer them. Seems many people do not do at-home plating, powder coating or mass finishing…or they know enough about it that they don't have to ask questions!
I take that back. There have been a few questions from people interested in setting up their own plating lines in their garage or what have you. Usually they just want to be able to nickel/chromium plate some old car parts or brass plate some antique hardware. I pass these inquiries on to "the plating man," Art Kushner, who puts the situation in perspective, pointing out all the local, state and federal regulations that must be complied with as well as the fact that mixing up plating chemicals is not necessarily safe and/or easy.
The Letters to the Editor page is for all kinds of finishing industry related comments and inquiries. This includes comments about the magazine. PF wants to provide you, the reader, with what you want to read about. This is your magazine. Tell us what you want to know, what you don't like or what you do like. We can't promise we'll accommodate all requests, but we will seriously consider everything.
You can email your questions to letters@pfonline.com. You can send your letter traditionally by mailing it to Products Finishing, Letters to the Editor, 6915 Valley Ave., Cincinnati, OH 34244-3029. Heck, we even accept faxes at 513-281-8801. We will try to post as many letters each month as we can. We look forward to hearing from you.
