Closing Out a Difficult 2020

As we head into the final quarter of 2020, most finishers and coaters are looking to put this year behind them and have their eyes set on next year. Truly, with what has occurred this year, looking forward to tomorrow is sometimes the only thing most in the industry can do to shake what has been a hellish year for many.

And as I bring you our October issue of FinishingAndCoating.com, I continue to be optimistic that those in the finishing and coating industry are going to be just fine if they stick with the principals that brought to where they are: hard work, innovation, and persistence.

This issue is chock full of great stories and information from the past 30 days of covering the industry. There is nothing more that I like than bringing the best ideas from the top facilities to your inbox each week through our newsletter and daily on our site.

We bring you four shop features this month, and each one is doing well in 2020 for various reasons.

We start out looking at Global Metal Finishing in Roanoke, VA, and its owner, Tamea Franco. As I note in the article on page 12, Franco was a typical entrepreneur, but she spent a lot of time in her basement with numerous buckets of chemicals and sheets of aluminum performing anodizing experiments. In 1987 she started East West DyeCom, which sold aluminum dyes to universities and colleges that had metal art programs. Now the president of Global Metal Finishing, she went into the shop one day in 2009 and saw the service side of the business shipping work all over the world; “It was that ‘aha moment,’” says Franco, who switched gears in the direction of the company and changed the name to Global Metal Finishing, thus fully committing the company’s efforts to the service side of the business.

We turn to powder coating with our profile of Kaser Blasting & Powder Coating. The story goes that shortly before their wedding day in 1987, Jay and Shari Kaser put up Shari’s grey Honda Prelude as collateral, took out a small business loan, and ventured into the business of residential painting. Almost 25 years later, Jay made the decision to expand the business into abrasive blasting and high-performance liquid painting. The Kasers purchased the 10,000 square foot building adjacent to the main office and acquired new equipment, and Kaser Blasting & Coatings made its debut in 2005.

The path takes us to South Carolina, where we profile the new paint stripping line of Roy Metal Finishing. Even though Roy Metal Finishing finishes millions of parts each year at its three facilities, it’s attention to small details that have made it one of the top finishing operations in North American and certainly one of the largest. For one of its particular applications — powder coating brake calipers and brake fluid systems— it required an extensive amount of masking down holes and other areas that were not only labor-intensive, and RMF sought a new way to save money and time by stripping those masked components.

We also head north to visit our friends in Canada, as The Metal Finishing Center is home to both Active Metal Finishing that provides zinc, electroless nickel, tin, black oxide and numerous other plating operations, as well as Bristol Powdercoat and Shotblast. Owner Allan Phillips has more than 100,000 square feet under roof at the two facilities, making it a true one-stop shop for anyone needing surface finishing and coatings in not only Canada, but much of the U.S. and even internationally.

We also have some fantastic technical articles this month, starting with Brad Durkin and Doug Lay from Coventya, whose “What is Your Excuse?” asks platers why they haven’t switched to trivalent chrome finishing, and gives some solid reasons why now is the time to start the process.

MacDermid Enthone’s Adam Blakeley takes on the problem where some shops are experiencing patterns and streaking coming out of their electroless nickel bath. As always, Adam has a few solid remedies for these problems which are well worth the read.

We go back to Coventya one more time, as Greg Terrell helps with smut Identification and removal on 4130 and 9300 alloys. “In my nearly 30 year career in metal finishing, I have learned to cringe when a problem is described as ‘random,’” Greg says, and his solutions offered are spot-on the problem at hand.

Overall, I’m proud of our third edition of FinishingAndCoating.com online digital magazine, and we hope you like it, too. Drop me a line at tp@FinishingAndCoating.com if you have a question or an idea for a story. I’ll maybe plan it for an upcoming issue … hopefully 2021 when we can slam the door on this year.