Electrochemicals Blog – EPI – Electrochemical Products Inc.

March 20th, 2009

By Eric Olander

I usaully save my blog for work related items, but today I am going to venture away and recommend a book for all to read regardless of you faith and your religion. First of all The Shack is a great read fiction read. You want to keep on turning the pages to learn about the next surprise. This book will challenge your faith regardless of your religion because it discusses God's unconditional love.

The main character of the book goes to The Shack to meet the Trinity. The main character faces his past life challenges that have been kept in his memory that has caused a lot of pain. He faces each of his life challenges and finds peace! This book can help you can find some peace.

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March 17th, 2009

By Eric Olander

I just got back from China. I worked with John of EPi who is living in Guangzhuo, China  our Asian Market Manager. During my last visit we went and called on EPI customers and potential new clients. The picture enclosed is me with Ms. Lu left side of picture and Ms Du the President of our Chinese distribution company. Ms Du has had much success selling Ultra Blak 407 black oxide for stainless steel, B/Ox antiquing processes, and E-Teccorrosion inhibitors. Ms. Du business is located in Foshan, China and she is looking forward to moving to a larger facility  by June. I did find business slowing down in China as well. The planes were not as full either as the flight attendant stated that US travel to Asia is down.

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February 10th, 2009

nioscan1.pdf

By Eric Olander

Linden Black of Phoenix Electroform Products challenged us for blackening nickel. We did not have an answer for him so we provided a sample for him to conduct blackening tests on his nickel substrate. Lindy like was he saw visually and now he had to test it with a spectrophotometer to confirm his visual results. He found a value of 0.73-0.75 using the spectrophotometer. Attached is his graph that  he developed and placed into the pdf above. Click on the pdf to view graph! To learn more about Ultra Blak 465 click on the underlined area.  If you review the previous blogs last April we also used Ultra Blak 465 to blacken Kovar!

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February 10th, 2009

By Eric Olander

I became the National Association Surface Finishers (NASF) Sur/Fin Steering Committee Chairman effective January 1st, 2009.  Originally, I was to assume the Chair after Sur/Fin 2009 in Louisville,KY. Barry Cohen resigned when his company dropped their membership in the NASF. The Steering Committee is made of 8-9 volunteers from various backgrounds and companies. This additional responsibility has created  extra work, but we are striving to develop a system for Sur/Fin trade show now and in the future. Right now we are revamping our technical program.  For example,  how we recruit papers  and what categories of papers that will be presented.

Sur/Fin the trade show toke a step backward last year in Indianapolis from Cleveland . This year will be more challenging than last year because of the economic times.  So far we are  seeing tiny fallout from the economy with exhibitors. This years show will be in June 15-17th,2009. To learn more go to www.sur-fin.net. We look forward to seeing you in Louisville! Any questions please contact me in the office!

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December 19th, 2008

By Eric Olander

 Today Ms. Du from China completed here training at EPi. EPi looks forward to having my Ms. Du represent EPi is China. Ms. Du trained on EPi's  latest developments in blackening  magnesium and electroplating magnesium  . Ms. Du's customers are looking for a blackening process for magnesium. EPi hopes to launch it some time first quarter in 2009.

Additional training was completed on EPi's B/Ox  product line including a discussion on the many variables in antiquing processes; substrates, antiquing process, relieving process, and the top-coating process. Another  interesting application was black oxiding polished stainless steel cell phone cover with Ultra blak 407  as a replacement for black nickel. We look forward to growing our business in China with Ms. Du .

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December 2nd, 2008

By Eric Olander\

Last week we launched our second Metal Finishing podcast on www.metalfinishing.com. Out first podcast produced excellent results with a high amount of interest on EPi's trivalent yellow chromates,black oxide processes and our latest developoments in antiquing/oxidizing click here to see link www2.epi.com/electrochemicalsblog .

This latest blog talks about EPI's E-Brite Ultra Cualkaline non-cyanide copper and  E-Brite 50/50 alkaline non-cyanide silver process .  A new reason to switch to non-cyanide processes is the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations on sodium and potassium cyanide. If you switch to these non cyanide processes you do not have to fall under the regulations of the DHS.

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September 26th, 2008

By Eric Olander

Eric Olander, President of EPi and John Gilbert, Sales Representative of Gilbert & Jones install a new E-Brite Ultra Cu bath (alkaline non-cyanide copper) to replace a copper  pyrophosphate  with excellent success. One advantage is the E-Brite Ultra Cu alkaline non-cyanide copper bath is it does not generate the orthophosphate like the pyrophosphate bath. The E-Brite Ultra Cu bath also plates directly to electro-less nickel (EN), while the pyrophosphate copper bath had to use a cyanide copper process. Another expected benefit is the bath stability day after day as it has a larger operating window than the pyrophosphate bath. The customer is also using cyanide copper strike prior to plating zinc die-cast and zincated aluminum parts and then the pyro copper. We can eliminate the cyanide copper process as well.

The E-Brite Ultra Cu is the same process that we used plating directly to the back of an I-pod . Click on E-Brite Ultra Cu to watch the video.

Gilbert & Jones is EPi's distributor in the New England area. To learn more about Gilbert & Jones go to www.gilbertandjones.net. John Gilbert has may years of experience in the metal finishing industry and solves problems for his customers. Gilbert & Jones is a full line distributor that can meet all of your needs. Gilbert & Jones and EPi make a great team!

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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.

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August 29th, 2008

By Eric Olander

The last day we went through two training sessions on manufacturing  by Masterlock team members. The first session a group of suppliers had a goal of shooting a  ball with a catapult 12 feet plus or minus 6 inches. We had three variables, the ball ( a sponge ball and a golf wiffle ball), the launching angle ( a protractor device was built on the catapult for measuring the angle),  and the point where the catapult arm stopped after the arm released. A runner band was used as the springing device. You can see me on the right side of the picture helping to hold the catapult for back fire. Fortunately we had three engineers in our group so we taking the military approach in firing a mortar. Our goal was to find what variable had the largest effect on the distance. We first used the sponge ball and tried changing arm stop position. After two tries withbthe arm position we had it close , but it was too far. Next, we  worked on the launch angle finding that a 5-10 degree for the launch arm gave us our range and 8 -9 degrees was the best angle.  The last variable was the type of ball. We all thought  the whiffle ball would fly less. We kept the same settings on the catapult and the golf whiffle ball was in range! Therefore, the launch angle had the largest affect on the distance.

The next event  was to assemble a wooden car with four wheels, four wooden axles, and four disk brakes. We had six work stations and one person who transported everything. During the first ten minutes we only assembled three cars because of the rules of manufacturing that were given to us. I worked station three, assembling the wheels,axles, and disk brakes to the wooden car. I had to unassembled the three components and re-assemble them together.  We lost a lot of time not being efficient. Together we worked on developing a new process and our rules. We tried it again and we assembled 52 cars in 10 minutes!

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August 28th, 2008

By Eric Olander

This morning Bob Rice ,Vice President of Master Lock kicked off Masterlock's 2008 North American Supplier Conference. This is my first Masterlock NASC. The three previous conferences where held in Milwaukee ( Masterlock's corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility), Louisville, Ky ( Masterlock's distribution center) and Tuscon, AZ/NogalesMexico ( Masterlock's assembly center). I learned that China is becoming an expensive place to source product  because of the VAT rebate has been eleimnated, higher wages, labor law ( 80 hour weeks are 40 hour weeks/40hours of overtime), the appreciation of the yuan, and another factor is a  Chinese person worker can make a higher wage in the food service industry than in manufacturing industry.  China is having a labor shortage!I also listened to Adam Meister from Fortune Brands which besides  Masterlock also includes companies like Moen faucet , Jim Bean bourbon and Titlist golf. Adam discussed Fortune Brands expectations of its suppliers committing to Fortune Brand's Global Citizenship  policy. Adam also discussed how their audit program for suppliers works. To see this policy go to www.fortunebrands.com .

 We also listened to other Masterlock team members discuss their success  with Masterlock suppliers.  Greg Radaj  Sr Purchasing Manager discussed his consignment program and how it has made Milwaukee work better and save  money. After the morning talks we had two options go for a raft ride down the Snake River or take a bus tour of the  Grand Tetons. I selected the Snake River trip. Please note that the water flow was low so we really never had much white water, but we had awesome views of the Grand Tetons. I have pictures, but I have to learn how to do a slide show on Word-press so please be patient with me. Our tour guide and oarsman was Andy who was originally from North  Carolina, but went skiing once at Jackson Hole and has not returned since. Andy is finishing up his Geography degree from Wyoming University and he educated us of many geological facts  of the area. The Tetons are very young Mountains only 8 million years old if I remember correctly.  Yellowstone is about 50 miles from the Tetons and has an active volcano that goes off every 600,000 years. They know it went off 1.2 million years ago and about 600,0000 years ago. Geologists are predicting that it could blow any time the next 10,000 years. The Yellowstone volcano, when its blows top will be 250 times greater than Mt St. Helens.   This will destroy most of the western US and  put so much ash into the air that the ice age will come back and the glaciers will take over again like they did 15,000 years ago in this region. This was a great first day!

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