Electrochemicals Blog – EPI – Electrochemical Products Inc.

December 27th, 2011

By Eric Olander

Last week Kenji Nakayashiki Deputy Manager Marketing Division of Audec Co. Ltd  came to meet Eric Olander President of EPi and to learn about black oxide processes for steel and black oxide. Kenji learned about room temperature blackening Insta Blak 333 and Ultra Blak 400 premium grade hot black oxide process. The Ultra Blak 400 process blackend a  wide range of steel alloys and Kenhji said it does not fume like the local formulations. A demonstration on blackening stainless steel with Ultra Blak 407 with no hexvalent chrome was conductied as well. EPi is in the process of developing a new black oxide sfor stainless steel withotu chrome adn molybdenum in the lab right now.

Audec has been distributing EPi black oxide chemistry for over 12 years now. We are  excited about growing our business in Japan.

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

August 22nd, 2011

By Eric Olander

Left to right Andrey  Sklyarenko Executive Director- Sonis, Bulat Bayzuldin Owner - Sonis,Eric Olander- Preisdent EPi and John Cheng  EPi  AsiaMarket Development Manager . Bulat Bayzuldin introduced Andrey Sklyarenko the new executive director of Sonis Co. Moscow, Russia to the EPI team last week plus to learn more about EPi's alkaline non cyanide copper for plating directly to zinc diecast E-Brite Ultra CU . EPi has had great success plating zinc diecast with E-Brite Ultra CU all over the world.  Sonis is selling E-Brite Ultra CU to Russian platers to eliminate cyanide from their metal finishing facilities. They achieve success by vibratory finishing the zinc diecast parts prior to plating them in the E-Brite Ultra CU process. Sonis also successfully sells Insta Blak 333 room temperature black oxide finish for steel and iron substrates. EPi sells its specialty chemicals all over the world approximately 30% of our business is outside the USA.

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

March 11th, 2011

By Eric Olander

EPi is sending Char Heinke and Mark Kulas to man our booth at METAL fab 2011. EPi will performing as demonstration by Mark Kulas on our new GELS Insta Blak 333 GEL, B/Ox 311 GEL, B/ox 316 GEL, and Insta Blak ss370 GEL. Mark will be showing a  finished panel with the  latest GEL B/Ox 312 GEL which produces a more of a light brown finish than the B/ox 311 GeL which produces a more black brown finish. Mark Kulas will demonstrate our GEL products on March 17th, 2011 at 11:30-12:30 on the show floor. To learn more about the show and NOMMA go to www.norma.org

Posted in Black Oxide, Metal Antiquing | No Comments »

December 9th, 2010

By Eric Olander

EPi is excited to advertise in IEN's new Finishing World www.finishingworld.com . In this new ad you obtain a free Insta Blak 333 sample kit on EPi's new e-commerce site http://ecommerce.epi.com  Offer expires January 31, 2011.  Also available is a free 250 ml sample bestselling water displacing oil E-Tec 505+ .

I want to take this time to say thank you to all of EPi's customers during 2010 as we  recovered in 2010 from 2009 looking to a bigger year in 2011 as we are working on many new projects:new black oxide, non cyanide bronze and brass plating and a new lacquer E-Laq 525. Stay tune!

Posted in Black Oxide | No Comments »

October 25th, 2010

By Eric Olander

EPi is gearing up for its next trade show Fabtech 2010 in Atlanta in the CCAI Finishing Pavillion. Eric Olander, President and Char Heinke, Business Development Manager will be handling the booth this year. EPi will be exhibiting a aluminum pretreatment process PreCoat CF that replaces hexavalent chromate pretreatment processes with excellent performance and adhesion. PreCoat CF is EU  Qualicoat approved process.

EPi also will show casing it E-Brite Ultra Cu alkaline non cyanide copper process for all metals and E-Brite 50/50 alkaline non cyanide silver process. You can now eliminate cyanide from your finishing shops eliminating the  Department of Homeland Security reporting requirements.

EPi will also be exhibiting our black oxide processes Ultra Blak 400, 285 F hot black oxide, and Insta Blak 333 room temperaure black oxide. EPi provides you solutions for both processes.

Finally EPi will be displaying its trivalent  yellow chromate E-Chrome Ultra Yellow 600 which offers long hours of salt spray to white rust 400-600 hour salt spray resistance.

EPi's booth number is 822!  Hope to see you there!

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

October 5th, 2010

By Eric Olander

EPi last week launched it s new e-commerce platfom that will make it easier to for our e-commerce customers to order on line. The eventual goal is to use this platform for all types of customers. This month EPi is having a sale on all e-commerce orders of Insta Blak 333. These customers will receive 10% off on all e-commerce orders of Insta Blak 333 which has the widest operationg window without smutting problems like other processes.CLICK HERE to go to the new e-commerce site

We are working on getting msds and technical data sheets as well on the site. Stay tune to the latest updates!

Posted in Black Oxide, Uncategorized | No Comments »

July 14th, 2010

From the Left John Cheng, Eric Olander, Char Heinke, Mark Kulas, Tom Axon, and Paul Kozdron

By Eric Olander

Sorry for the delay in not writing a blog, but my father Stan has been had some health challenges. Sur/Fin 2010 was a great success as we  visited potential new customers and existing ones on new processes. It seems that alkaline non cyanide copper was one of them more popular topics. The  discussion included heat treat stop off applications which the E-Brite 30/30 leads the way as it is Boeing  approved BAC 5722 for commercial and defense applications. Another application was replacing cyanide copper being used in a strip application plus a barrel application on steel. To learn more about the alkaline copper CLICK HERE.

Mark Kulas, EPi Chemist from our lab demonstrated our latest Insta Blak 333 GEL for steel and iron and B/ox 311 GEL for copper and copper alloys. We shooing a video and we  will shortly be posting it once I create it. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Insta Blak 333 had some considerable interest as well as people were looking at  bringing parts in house that they were sending out for hot black oxide.

I won the Munning Award from the NASF on my work as the Sur/Fin committee chair person. I will be serving as Past Chair for the next two years.  The Munning Award is given to a supplier has demonstrated leadership and volunteerism for the NASF. I am working on a picture for you to see.

Posted in Black Oxide, Copper Plating, Metal Antiquing | No Comments »

September 11th, 2008

By Eric Olander

EPi is excited about working with Metal Finishing magazine in participating in its first pod-cast/webinar. Reginald Tucker Editor of  Metal Finishing magazine interviewed me regarding the latest innovations at  EPi. To gain access to this pod-cast/audio program go to http://www.metalfinishing.com/webinars/epi0908.html  . Log in and sit back and listen to what is new in trivalent chormates, black oxide and antiquing at EPi.

Posted in Black Oxide, Eric Olander Happenings, Metal Antiquing, Trivalent Chromates | No Comments »

May 14th, 2008

By Eric Olander

 Interesting result with  two black oxide processes,  Ultra Blak 400hot black oxide and  Insta Blak 333room temperature blackening, they provide an excellent anti-galling surface on steel parts. What is anti-galling? Anti-galling is necessary to break in mating parts, the anti-galling surface sacrifices the lubricating layer of black during the initial contact and abrasion while a work hardened surface is formed. An example of this is drill bits and also concrete nailing hammers. A  blackened drill bit when it first touches the steel being drilled into serves as a lubricant to the steel that is being drilled into. After that drilling operation the drill bit is surfaced hardened ready to take on other drilling operations. Another application by one of EPI's customer was concrete  nailing guns. The Insta Blak 333  process actually provided better anti-galling  results than the hot black oxide processes. The Insta Blak process resulted in the appropriate torque values for that anti-galling situation  in concrete nailing guns that the hot black oxide process could not, it was too hard.

Posted in Black Oxide | No Comments »

April 29th, 2008

By Eric Olander

Goodrich Corporation's Advanced Sensors Technical Center sent EPI's lab in New Berlin, WI samples of Kovar parts for blackening. Their challenge was that the traditional stainless steel blackening of 416 series was more grey than black. Kovar contains a high amount of nickel 29% and cobalt 17% metals. Larry Abbott tried our Ultra Blak 465, hot black oxide process for nickel. Attached is an SME picture taken at 10,000x magnification. Goodrich likes the uniform black color because it was black with no grey which works better for their light sensor applications.

Posted in Black Oxide | No Comments »