Electrochemicals Blog – EPI – Electrochemical Products Inc.

February 27th, 2008

By Eric Olander

Richard C. Longworth's book Caught in the Middle hits a home run on what is going on in the Midwest with the global market. Dick's book discusses how the global market has changed the Midwest's main-street make up with the new model that corporate America is implementing, that is global sourcing and immigration of Mexican workers to the Midwest. Newton, IA use to be the headquarters to Maytag, but Whirlpool purchased Maytag and most of those Maytag workers no longer have jobs. Iowa and Newton have lost a large partner to the Iowan economy that was victim to the new rules of running a company global markets. They have to reeducate themselves to become the worker that corporate America wants today, college educated workers. The city of Seattle has about 40% of it population that had a four year degree. The city of Milwaukee has about 15%.

I am going to step back form Richard's book.Perry, IA is where my uncle and aunt have lived for most of their lives. The last six years has brought lots of change to this community. Tyson has a meat plant in Perry that uses Mexican immigrants for its employees. They start out at $12.00/hour for a job. Perry is about 7,000 people and today is about 35% immigrants. The challenge is that these workers send there money back down to Mexico instead of keeping it in Perry. On pay day at the local Hy-Vee grocery store there is a Perry police officer that stands guard now. Perry has had two murders in the last few years. To save money 4-6 immigrant families are moving into rental homes. The stately homes on main street are run down now. My uncle was in an accident with one of the local immigrants and the immigrant had no insurance. Iowa has a law that every one is suppose to have insurance. One of my customers in Iowa had the same thing happen when they had an accident with an immigrant. At the end of the day there was not much that happen to the Mexican immigrant who had no insurance for there car. Are we developing into two countries that has two sets of rules within the USA? Immigrant vs Born in America. We can not have two sets of rules or two countries.

Back to Dick's book. He is asking for the Midwest to work together to take on the global competition of today. This includes universities, companies, schools, and the governments. If something is not done to address this there are going to be a lot of more Perry,Iowas throughout the Midwest and eventually the towns will die. So if you are in the Midwest you need to read this book and pass it onto your friend and neighbor. Try this link below to get the book.

Caught In The Middle

Posted in Eric Olander Happenings | No Comments »

February 20th, 2008

Recently, a distributor from Chemithon -Portland Gary Sylvester presented us an opportunity to remove laser scale. We tried two products E-Pik 215  sodium bisulfate base and E-Kleen 154 phosphoric acid base cleaners. The following is the method that works for removing the scale

E-Pik 215 2#/gallon, 140 F, 3 minutes

E-Kleen 154 10% by volume, 120-140F, 5-7 minutes

E-Kleen 154 — An acidic, solvent based, multi-metal cleaner and mild aluminum etchant.

E-Kleen 154 is a liquid concentrate blend of acid, solvent, surfactants and complexers, formulated to achieve in one step, the cleaning and preparation of a variety of metal surfaces prior to blackening, phosphating and chromating. It is recommended for use following conventional alkaline soak cleaners to ensure neutralization of residual alkalinity prior to acidic blackening or oxidizing processes. It is an effective surface conditioner/activator prior to Insta-Blak acidic blackening processes. It will remove light oils, light rust, light heat-treat scale and most shop soils efficiently and quickly. This metal cleaner can be bought online.

E-Pik 215 — Dry Acid Salts

It is a general purpose metal activator and deoxidizer containing fluoride which is used at room temperature on steel, copper, brass, and zinc.

E-Pik 215 is a free flowing mixture of dry acids and is more convenient and safer to use than liquid mineral aids. It does not produce the undesirable fumes given off with strong acids. It is dissolved in water and used at ambient temperatures to remove light to medium surface rust from steel and to activate steel surfaces prior to blackening with EPI's Insta-Blak or Ultra-Blak solutions. Heavily rusted surfaces may require elevated temperatures of 150°-170° F. No venting required when used at ambient temperatures. It is used following the water rinse after cleaning the steel surfaces with EPI's E-Kleen alkaline soak and electrocleaners.

E-Pik 215 is more moderate in its action on steel surfaces than mineral acids and produces a uniformly active surface. It is also used to activate zinc plated surfaces, diecast zinc surfaces, and copper and copper alloy surfaces prior to blackening, oxidizing, antiquing, plating, chromating, or other finishing.

Posted in Black Oxide, Metal Cleaners | No Comments »

February 15th, 2008

By Eric Olander

February 12th, John Jairo Sanchez President of Galvano of Quito, Ecuador visited EPi to receive training on EPi products.

Galvano sells in Ecuador and Columbia metal finishing processes. John learned about EPi's trivalent chromates E-Chrome Ultra Blue and E-Chrome Ultra Yellow which he stated has an excellent potential with his customers. E-Brite Ultra Cu alkaline non cyanide copper plating for zinc die cast was also demonstrated resulting in excellent adhesion to zinc die cast. John will also be selling the E-Brite 50/50 alkaline non cyanide silver plating process as well as EPi's Insta Blak and Ultra Blak metal blackening & black oxide processes. We look forward to a long term relationship Galvano.

Posted in Black Oxide, Electroplating, Eric Olander Happenings | No Comments »

February 15th, 2008

We recently received some tooling parts in our lab from a major tool manufacturer that was having black oxide coated tool parts turning an orangish-red color on a machined surface area. Their goal is to make the parts a uniform black. They sent some parts to Mark Kulas, one of EPi's chemical technicians, to develop a custom process for their parts. Here is the procedure that produced uniform black parts.

1.  E-Kleen 148-E 10% by volume, 140F, 3-6 minutes
2. Cold Water Rinse 30 seconds
3. E-Prep 258 20% by volume, 70-80 F, 30-90 seconds
4. Cold Water Rinse 30 seconds
5. Insta Blak 333 10% by volume, 70-80F, 2-4 minutes
6. Cold Water Rinse 30 seconds
7. E-Tec 503 water displacing oil 100% by volume 1-2 minutes

    There are other instances where Insta Blak 333 will produce black parts where hot black oxide will not.  Steel castings can turn red-black during the hot black oxide process. Take the same parts in Insta Blak 333 and the parts will turn a uniform black color with no red hues. Insta Blak 333 produces a black without the white salting out that hot black oxide will on powdered metal parts. Insta Blak 333 produces a great black color on cast iron, while hot black oxide will have a red hue to it. So when evaluating your blackening choices Insta Blak 333 can produce superior results to hot black oxide.  Here is a quick link to our Intsta Blak page.

http://www.epi.com/black-oxide/insta-blak-333.html

Posted in Black Oxide | No Comments »

February 8th, 2008

 By Eric Olander

 Today I met with our distributor CMFS that covers the Western PA and NY region. Alex Moore, Candy Joslyn, Brian Sutton, and Dave Wesp of CMFS were present at the presentation. The presentation included EPI's work on trivalent chromates specifically the Ultra Yellow, Super Yellow and our latest development which has been approaching 600-700 hours of salt spray. One thing I learned is that there is a demand for trivalent chromate that offers 600- 700 hours of salt spray. Brian informed me that there are some people using a trivalent chromate with a ceramic topcoat, but they are looking for alternatives .

We also discussed about plating on magnesium, the metal that will be plated on more in the future. I discussed our E-Brite Ultra CU-Mg process that results in higher corrosion protection than cyanide copper.

CMFS also has another division called Miraclean,  www.miraclean.com that sells aqueous cleaning systems such as ultra sonic systems. The President of CMFS is Tom Pembridge. CMFS www.cmfs.com  is located in Ashville, NY next to Jamestown,NY home of Lucille Ball about 2 1/2 hours away from Cleveland.

Posted in Eric Olander Happenings, Trivalent Chromates | No Comments »