Working as a consultant, I have the opportunity to travel a great deal and see many different types of manufacturers, coaters and products. If you are going to stay in this industry for nearly 30 years, you either get interested, get bored or get into something else to make your living. I hadn't planned to stay in the coating industry for this long, but I have found so much that is interesting, I am here to stay.
For the past four years, many sectors of the economy and business were soft or worse. We have had to tighten our budgets, reduce company workforces, and perform more tasks with less people and less capital. We have been in the classic recession situation with too much manufacturing capacity and not enough demand. Some business sectors have done well throughout this period, and others have gradually improved during the past year.
American manufacturing is alive and well at Grain Belt Supply Co Inc., Salina, Kansas. The company started in the grain elevator business in 1949. In 1953, Darwin Sampson, part-owner of Sampson Construction, purchased 25 percent of Grain Belt. Sampson built approximately 450 of the large concrete grain storage elevators that are used in agricultural towns throughout the Midwest. He purchased the balance of the business in 1960 and remains the majority stockholder today.
In mid-1998, when Nu-Way Industries Inc., Des Plaines, Ill., designer and fabricator of precision metal products, needed a new wastewater solution, the company called on Arbortech Corp., McHenry, Ill. Ray Graffia Jr., president of Arbortech, helped Nu-Way troubleshoot an existing membrane filtration system used to remove oil from solution. Although Graffia started his business in 1981 as a representative products, it was in 1992 that Arbortech built its first membrane oil removal system utilizing polymeric membranes and entered the manufacturing market.
Things keep changing in the coatings industry, but at times we are only aware of gradual change and miss the details. In recent years and months there have been steady improvements in materials, equipment and technique. Yes, we still use a spray washer, spray booths, spray guns and ovens, much like we have for the last 40 years or so, but look more closely and consider how many different innovations have come along.
Powder Coating '04 was held in Charlotte, N.C., September 21-23, the fourteenth tradeshow sponsored or co-sponsored by the Powder Coating Institute (PCI). Trade show attendance has been dropping for several years now, in our industry and in most industrial sectors.
Enhancing Powder Adhesion on Aluminum We apply powder coatings to HRS steel and extruded aluminum parts that are used outdoors. We use a five-stage washer with a cleaner, rinse, phosphate,
The magazine gets a lot of feedback about what it writes and publishes. Most of the time, people are complimentary. Some of the time, they are critical. But it is always constructive to get feedback.
