From regulatory challenges to technology innovations, Products Finishing looks back at the finishing industry stories of 2024.
Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) offers an innovative approach to high-performance coatings for light metal alloys, providing superior alternatives to traditional hard anodizing. The process transforms the surface of metals like Al, Mg and Ti into a robust oxide layer with customizable properties, tailored for demanding applications in aerospace, semiconductor, and industrial manufacturing. incoming circuit breaker
Engineers at Surgical Coatings in Colorado have been ingeniously developing their own equipment, automation, processes and software since this powder coater’s inception in 1995.
Electroplating requires adherence to process control and maintenance procedures — here are some common missteps to avoid.
A throwing power cell is described in detail, which can be used as a small jig and positioned in an electroplating tank. This Assaf Cell is particularly useful for simulating small recesses, typically through-holes found in printed circuit boards.
A joint test protocol was developed by a hex chrome-free consortium to best evaluate the most recent commercially available alternative conversion coatings. This article reveals the findings.
While new orders improved, materials prices continue to increase.
Basic and periodic preventive maintenance is essential for avoiding oven downtime.
By focusing on effluent treatment and efficient tin recovery, this Indian surface treatment plant meets stringent environmental standards and sustainable high-quality production.
Is a custom masking design worth the investment? John Gill of Caplugs outlines the considerations to keep in mind when choosing between an off-the-shelf masking solution or a custom-made one.
The collaboration between Hubbard-Hall and Pavco brings together cutting-edge chemistry and extensive expertise to tackle common challenges in metal finishing, particularly for zinc (Zn) and Zn alloy plating. By leveraging the combined focus on innovation and efficiency, the team delivers practical approaches that help applicators elevate their processes, reduce costs and improve overall performance. In this webinar, the presenters will explore the synergistic effects of passivates and topcoats, revealing how they provide enhanced corrosion protection for Zn and Zn alloy plating. Together, these advances enhance the quality and durability of finishes and ensure long-term competitiveness in the marketplace. Agenda: Elevated performance Common issues addressed Innovative processes
XRF measurement of the layers is also important to assure the right color and appearance of the finished goods. Join Fischer as it discusses how XRF measurements can be used for process control, quality control and incoming inspection of electroplated jewelry pieces. Agenda: The high precision of XRF Cost-reduction benefits Getting reliable results in seconds Measuring multiple layers of plating thickness Calibrating for optimal performance
Any one of these three facets will help you become a stronger powder coater, but this session will walk you through all of them and provide details that will be most valuable on a quest to develop an optimal powder operation. Agenda: The good: introduction to powder coatings The bad: common challenges The ugly: debunking myths Best practices for optimal operations Case studies
Our focus includes the use of membrane filtration systems – which can recover up to 98% of cleaning solutions – dramatically reducing the volume of concentrated waste requiring disposal. Additionally, we delve into strategies for maximizing cleaner longevity by precisely adjusting oil concentrations, leveraging the direct relationship between cleaner concentration and effective oil content management. By adopting these methods, businesses can achieve significant cost savings through reduced chemical consumption, lower waste disposal expenses and decreased energy usage – all while promoting environmental sustainability. Agenda: Membrane Filtration Systems: Learn how these systems protect industrial assets and recover a substantial percentage of cleaning solutions. Cost-Saving Strategies: Discover opportunities for savings through extended cleaner longevity and reduced chemical waste Technical Cleanliness Challenges: Understand the various challenges in achieving and maintaining technical cleanliness across processes. Establish a more sustainable and cost-efficient cleaning program that delivers superior results, reduces downtime and minimizes environmental impact
Dive into plating bath optimization. Learn about the importance of chemistry measurement, various analysis methods and real-time monitoring benefits through X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis with insightful case studies highlighting efficiency gains. Join Fisher Technology's Devarsh Shah and Melissa Agneta as they discuss how to improve plating efficiency by exploring essential chemistry techniques, including real-life examples. Discover why measuring plating bath chemistry matters, the different ways to analyze it and the benefits of monitoring it as it happens in real-time. With XRF analysis, you'll gain the knowledge and tools to improve your plating process, thus ensuring top-notch efficiency and quality in surface finishing. Agenda: Importance of measuring plating bath chemistry Methods for analyzing bath chemistry Benefits of monitoring bath chemistry in real-time Case studies
In this high-level overview of wastewater system maintenance and upgrades, Robin Deal and Brian Greene will review the critical components required for a fully-functional system and discuss their expected life span. Learn to navigate factors such as material degradation and technological advancements, examine the effects, and address issues of chemical usage on the equipment. This webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge needed to ensure your wastewater system remains in optimal condition, highlighting the importance of understanding both the hardware requirements and the chemical interactions that can influence system longevity and performance. By implementing proactive maintenance strategies and informed chemical management practices, you can enhance the reliability and efficiency of your wastewater infrastructure, ultimately contributing to environmental sustainability and public health protection. Agenda: Essential equipment for wastewater systems Life span considerations for wastewater systems Impact of chemical usage on wastewater equipment
This presentation introduces the Chemical Coaters Association International (CCAI), highlighting its mission, vision, and role as a premier resource for education, training, and networking in the industrial finishing industry. Attendees will learn about CCAI’s structure, membership benefits, educational programs, including training seminars and online courses, and partnerships with events like FABTECH. It will also highlight the membership levels, benefits tailored to both corporate and individual members, and initiatives like peer groups for custom coaters, Women in Finishing, student outreach, and valuable online resources for the finishing community. Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2025 Time: 4:30 PM Check-In / 5:00 PM Dinner & Presentation Location: Cornerstone Sports Pub & Eatery 24 S. Main St. Oconomowoc, WI 53066 Cost: $30 CCAI Members / $45 Non-Members Registration: The registration cut-off date is January 8, 2025.
Save the date for the 2025 Florida Finishers Corp's Mid-Winter Conference. Please Register on the Florida Finishers Corp's Website https://www.floridafinisherscorp.com/ * Hotel information and discount code is on the FFC website *
Chicago Midwest Chapter of NASF Annual Business Meeting Election of Year 2025 Board of Directors Presentation of: The Bertram A. Stone Memorial Award Location: Westwood Tavern 1385 N. Meacham Rd., Schaumburg, IL Includes: Food and Drink
WiM's first-ever Men as Allies Conference will serve as a thought-provoking platform for participants to discuss the crucial role of men as allies in the manufacturing industry. Experts in the field will present evidence-based arguments and real-world examples to demonstrate the advantages of diversity, equity, and inclusion in manufacturing. Attendees will learn and discuss strategies and best practices to actively support and champion women in the manufacturing industry, thereby contributing to the creation of lasting change within their organizations. This event is tailored for men in the manufacturing industry at the Director level and above, who are committed to fostering diversity and inclusion within their organizations. It’s particularly designed for those who are eager to grow as allies, actively supporting and championing women in manufacturing. Through participation, attendees will gain insights, tools, and strategies to become more effective advocates for a diverse and inclusive workplace. The Men as Allies Conference will offer an opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of allyship, engage in vital conversations about gender equity and leave armed with actionable strategies to drive meaningful, inclusive change in their workplaces. Sessions include presentations on what allyship is and why it matters, the business case for gender equity, enhancing allyship through emotional intelligence, allyship in action, and creating an allyship action plan. The conference also will feature small, interactive breakout sessions and engaging expert panel discussions, all aimed at equipping attendees with concrete tools and ideas to elevate their role as allies in the workplace.
Each year Products Finishing partners with thousands of finishing operations in the U.S. to celebrate National Surface Finishing Day (NSFD) on the first Wednesday in March. NSFD is designed to celebrate and showcase the industry to trade schools, businesses, officials and media, as well as to celebrate employees and staff. The overarching goal of NSFD is to bring further awareness to the important roles plating and coating facilities play in their communities. Facilities are encouraged to host events and work with local media to build awareness about the contributions made by the surface finishing industry. For a helpful guide to reaching out to media outlets, download the NSFD toolkit here. How can you celebrate? Share your company’s story Hold an open house where the public can check out your facility –— either in person or virtual Offer student shop tours to local trade schools Invite local elected officials to visit and get to know your staff Celebrate your employees Share news about what you’re doing on social media and use the hashtag #NationalSurfaceFinishingDay or #NSFD
CCAI is offering a comprehensive Industrial Finishing Safety Seminar developed by industry experts well-versed in safety for finishing operations. This day-and-a-half seminar focuses on NFPA 33, the Standard for Spray Application Using Flammable or Combustible Materials and will deliver important and critical information on how to safely operate an industrial finishing line. Topics Covered: An introduction to safety Overview and definitions General requirements and electrostatic spray equipment Ventilation Storage handling and distribution Fire protection Operations, maintenance and training Drying and curing Liquid and powder coatings Authority Having Jurisdiction panel discussion Who Should Attend? Manufacturing, staff and environmental engineers (industrial health & safety) Lead painters Maintenance leads and personnel Finishing equipment designers System controls and project engineers Facility managers Finishing industry distributors Date: Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12 Time: Tuesday - 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM and Wednesday 8:00 AM - Noon Location: Sames 45001 5 Mile Road Plymouth, MI 48170 Registration Fee: CCAI Members: $599 / Non-Members: $750 Registration Fee Includes: Classroom instruction; lunch on day one; a certificate of completion; and a printed copy of the NFPA 33 Standard for Spray Application Using Flammable or Combustible Materials. Registration: CLICK HERE to register. Space is limited.
Thousands of people visit our Supplier Guide every day to source equipment and materials. Get in front of them with a free company profile.
Features stories and news on the adaptations of top shops, good habits, beneficial practices and successes that make a finishing shop a "Top Shop."
Young professionals are a vital asset to the finishing industry, and it is important to acknowledge those who are making great strides in shaping the industry's future.
Products Finishing is proud to announce a new awards program that recognizes individuals in the industry that are making important contributions to forward the surface finishing industry.
Reactive Surfaces, an innovator in bio-based coatings, works on development of Carbon Capture Coatings, which harness the natural CO2-capturing capabilities of live algae.
This Cincinnati-based plating company has experienced a 33% improvement as a result of investing in a new electroless nickel line. It continues to tweak the control technology to create the most effective coating for its customers’ needs.
Experts from MacDermid Enthone Industrial Solutions share industry insights in an interview from the SUR/FIN 2024 finishing industry tradeshow.
In these uncertain times, it is refreshing to hear from and learn about young talent in the surface finishing industry who are striving to make a difference within their organizations and the industry as a whole.
By replacing its immersion parts washer with a vacuum degreasing system, this machine shop is much more efficient, saving the company money, man hours and the health of the operators.
Finding a more accurate paint proportioner for its application enabled this auto parts manufacturer to save significant costs and labor while increasing capacity.
10 Point Checklist to Improve Your Parts Cleaning Processes
A collection of four PF features that delve into the technologies, processes and people working to provide protection for the automobiles of today.
Survey and analysis, with Hubbard-Hall, of Products Finishing Top Shops benchmarking attitudes and practices concerning parts cleaning.
Specialized power supply components manufacturer adds automated silver, nickel plating capabilities for large parts.
The Electric Materials Company’s new nickel and silver plating line boasts an automated hoist with a 5000-pound capacity and tanks capable of handling parts 20 feet in length. Photo Credit: All photos courtesy of The Electric Materials Company
Sometimes it’s all in a name. The Electric Materials Company (Electric Materials), located in North East, Pennsylvania, manufactures a range of electrical components including extruded copper bar, commutators, AC rotors, as well as copper forgings, and castings. The company’s products are used in such sectors as electrical power, mining, military, transportation and architecture.
Working in the power generation and distribution sectors, Electric Materials deals with an increasing demand for tin, silver and nickel plating. The largest driver of this increased demand are data centers, which comprise racks and racks of servers and draw such massive amounts of power that solid bar material is needed to transmit the electricity. These copper busbars are a large part of Electric Materials’ business. The company provides custom copper extrusions, machining, as well as nickel, silver, and tin plating that can be applied to its full-length extrusions. The company has established itself as North America’s leading provider of data center power distribution systems. The facility covers approximately 420,000 square feet with over 140 employees.
According to Gian Marc Casolini, sales and business development manager at The Electric Materials Company, as the data center market expands, the need for U.S. power systems designed to meet those exacting demands has been on the rise.
The data center market is driving demand for silver- and nickel-plated copper parts.
“Data centers have really driven the nickel and silver requirement,” Casolini says. “We have other customers for it, but the data center market, in particular, has been very demanding of the quality, the thicknesses, and the repeatability of the product that we can make.”
Electric Materials recognized the market demand and the need to supply large volumes of long parts. The company’s previous plating lines were designed for batch processing and as such had physical limitations. The baths could only handle parts 8-10 feet long. With rising demands for larger copper bars, Electric Materials found itself in need of the capacity to increase production. In addition to increased capacity, high-quality results and repeatability were also a must. The company began investigating ways to have a highly automated system with multiple racks in order to process larger parts at an increased volume.
In 2019, customer demand reached a tipping point for Electric Materials. The company had found itself outsourcing an increasing amount of material to be plated and multiple factors were contributing to the need to bring the process back in-house.
“There were increased transportation costs and by sending the parts out for plating we were starting to feel like we had lost control of the finish of the product. We really wanted to be able to control that better within our facility,” Casolini says. “So, over the course of 2020, we invested quite heavily into a highly automated plating line that can process both the nickel and the silver with multiple racks at once and plate parts up to 20 feet in length.”
The company turned to Fanta Equipment Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, to build the new line. Fanta provides turnkey solutions for finishers through the design, manufacture, and installation of manual and automated finishing lines. According to Frank Fanta, president of Fanta Equipment, the company had worked with Electric Materials for more than 45 years — but as a customer. With its focus on specialized copper parts, Electric Materials was Fanta’s supplier for busbar used for hooking up rectifiers to plating tanks, as well as for copper anode balls used in electroplating. The existing relationship made for a natural partnership for the project. In addition, Fanta was within 100 miles of Electric Materials’ facility. The stage was set for a seamless build and installation. And then, COVID hit. Lockdowns were happening at the state level and despite being only 35 miles over the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, the companies had to grapple with travel restrictions.
“The biggest challenge was transporting the equipment,” Fanta says. “The State of Ohio did not want you going into Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania didn't want you to go into Ohio unless you are an essential worker.”
There were other challenges. “A lot of our suppliers who supply us with component parts and pieces for this line weren’t open,” Fanta says. “So we had to figure out how to get things delivered to us and find alternate sources, if we could —which took a bit more time.”
Simply keeping Fanta employees housed and fed during the installation added yet another hurdle. With hotels only operating at a fraction of their capacity and restaurants closed, it wasn’t easy. “Just trying to find the few places that were open for carryout only was a challenge,” Fanta says.
Nevertheless, both Fanta and Electric Materials teams persevered during the installation. Employees wore masks and adhered to social distancing protocols. The project managed to stay on track and Fanta was able to complete the installation by the target date. The new line boasts 22 foot long tanks, an automated hoist with the capacity to handle 5,000 pounds, a custom boiler system to heat the tanks, and an 85,000 CFM (cubic feet per minute) ventilation system.
Electric Materials dedicated an entire wing of its building to the new capabilities. The new line comprises eight tanks including rinse tanks, wash tanks, a nickel tank, a silver tank, as well as the rinse and repeat steps in-between. The line has a PLC-controlled overhead crane system that moves flight bars that drop into the individual tanks.
“At any given time, we can have multiple flight bars in process, giving us a pretty high throughput,” Casolini says.
The line is highly automated, only using manual labor to put the product on the various hooks and the bars where it begins the process. From there the bars are picked up by the overhead cranes and sent to the various tanks to undergo the plating process and then the final rinses and drawing steps.
In addition to the plating system with its tanks, cranes and PLC controls, Electric Materials also established a quality control lab. This facility allows for verification of all critical chemical and physical plating properties ensuring optimum product performance and reliable system operation. Additionally, added capability allows for recapture of precious metals and enables proper water analysis and treatment in compliance with state and federal requirements.
To learn more visit elecmat.com and fantaequip.com
Ag-Nano System LLC introduces a new method of electroplating based on golden silver nanoparticles aimed at replacing gold plating used in electrical circuits.
Contemplating how to continue offering chromic acid services in an increasingly stringent regulatory world? Liquid chrome products may be the solution you’re looking for.
Not all agitation methods are created equally. Pumped agitation with eductor nozzles can improve process tanks and quickly show a reduction in operating costs while keeping staff safe, following environmental legislation and preventing pollution.
As the finishing industry begins to move away from the use of hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium, what factors should finishers consider as they make new investments? Mark Schario, chief technology officer for Columbia Chemical offers a helpful overview of this complicated topic.
The 2024 Parts Cleaning Conference, co-located with the International Manufacturing Technology Show, includes presentations by several speakers who are new to the conference and topics that have not been covered in past editions of this event.
Baystar's Borstar technology is helping customers deliver better, more reliable production methods to greenhouse agriculture.
Debuting new speakers and cleaning technology content during this half-day workshop co-located with IMTS 2024.
Dear Products Finishing Audience Member:
Starting on Thursday August 8, 2024, PF will begin “gating” its premium content, asking all new website users to provide some information about themselves — name, title, employer, email address — before they are provided free access to the content.
We are doing this because the ways PF’s audience finds and accesses our content is changing. Google’s search algorithms, increasingly, make it difficult to connect PF’s content with the people who might make use of it. On top of that, generative AI like ChatGPT is serving up PF content to internet users without attributing that content to PF.
As a result, it has become increasingly important for PF evolve its audience development strategy and learn as much as possible about who is accessing our content, what content they are accessing and how they are accessing it.
With this audience development strategy, we hope to do two things:
PF plays a distinctive role and has earned a place of esteem within the focused and specialized industry it serves. Large developments in the media landscape are forcing us to change the way we communicate with our audience. We are confident that our audience values the role PF plays in their professional lives and will join us in this effort to stay connected to them.
We thank you for your continued interest in and support of PF and welcome any questions you might have about the brand’s new content gating strategy.
Welcome! You’ve unlocked premium content.
If you have time, please tell us a little more about yourself.
Unlimited access to our free premium content requires a little more information from you.
Your email address will be used to communicate with you about Products Finishing subscription offers, related products and services. Refer to our Privacy Policy for more information. Wondering why you’re seeing this? Read more here.
flexible copper busbar price Products Finishing is the media brand devoted to all things finishing. Electroplaters, anodizers, liquid and powder coaters have all come to rely on Products Finishing magazine as their No. 1 source for surface finishing news and technology for more than 80 years. About Us