Problems Powder Coating Chrome Wheels & Rims

July 26, 2022 by Kim Scott

Question: I have a set of rims that were originally chrome. I want them powder coated. It’s a rare set of AMG monoblocks.

I took them to a local rim specialist and they did a shit job. Can it be fixed? I don’t think they bathed them in acid but they said they did. They have pitting and corrosion.

Answer: Not going to lie.

Not going to lie this rim in the original condition is probably the worst I have ever seen. Quite frankly we wouldn’t have even taken them here at our custom coating shop but these guys do call themselves rim pros. I can agree with you on their outcome.

What I see from the pics are not enough surface build with primer coats sanding in between. Too heavy or thick of a coating plus lots of surface imperfections due to extreme oxidation and outgassing of the metal.

What they did wrong

This leads me to suspect they did not sandblast properly or at all as well as apply a pretreatment to help mitigate surface impurities in the metal.

I checked their sire there is no mention of sandblasting which is a critical component to the restoration process before powder coating.

With this many problems your best bet would be to paint them and avoid powder coating altogether; limiting surface irregularities like you have here.

Even-though powder coating offers excellent durability and perfection it is also about finding a common ground when a client comes in with an extreme restoration project like this one.

Managing expectations and outcomes is what a coater with experience can discern so that you’re not left disappointed.

What to look for when choosing a custom coater

Not everything can be restored to perfection or original, especially chrome. If you move forward with trying to restore them again make sure they have the appropriate stripping, sanding & blasting capabilities you need to do this project right.

You’ll need to look for someone who is experienced in applying a few good layers of surface build before priming & powder coating.

Powder coating works best when the underlayment surface is perfect. This labor intensive project could take several man hours to complete. aka. mo’money..mo’money..mo’money!

In the end, it may cost you far more than a brand’s restored market value is.

This is definitely something to consider as you may not be able to obtain an estimate next time.

In terms of money well spent it may be easier to find a better painter than an experienced coater.

That said, I think this company did the best with what they had.

However, it fell short because they either under-quoted, lacked experience, or did not have the right equipment. Perhaps all of the above.

Solution: Somethings you should consider

In this case, ask for some money back because they still had to pay out in labor & overhead.

Next, consider your attachment level for this project then consider the value option of painting over powder coating.

Getting a good raised surface through sandblasting is what helps prevent chipping and peeling. So yes you should expect that eventually. Lets hope they cured it long enough. Not to worry you more but curing is the second most important thing after blasting.

I talked to roro_designs he said you called him for advice too. Right? That guy is the best. Heed everything he says.

There are other trade tips too.

If you put an automotive clear you should be good. Just like powder clears it make the finish super durable.

I talked to another coater from Houston, TX. He says if your thinking of re-chroming you’ll have to send it to a de-chroming facility first then have your powder coater take it from there. In his state, getting caught with chromium uncontained is 10k for your first offense. If you do pursue a chromer to strip and re-chome just know that lead times for jobs has gone from 2-4 months to over 9 months due to ongoing supply chain issues. Some clients may not be able to tolerate waiting on projects that long.

The mistake rim guys do when getting into powder coatings is know when to say no when an impossible job comes in. If we had taken your job it would have been well over a thousand. More like double mostly from labor in sanding & special prep.

The money’s been spent but if your the OCD type that may be too much to bare. Its a tough call. If you can tolerate the inconsistency then slap some tires on them and enjoy them as much as you can.

One last thing

One last thing and something I hadn’t realised till just now revisiting the photos. Having a good seal with your tires is critical to maintaining air pressure. Achieving this with surface degradation even after painting or powder coating could be an issue for you. Fingers crossed this is not the case but to keep in mind before you spend anymore money. Tested it out first to see if they can still hold air and seal properly. Let me know if we can help in any way.

Got a question about powder coating? contact us.

Everything you need to know about stripping

June 27, 2022 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]In our exclusive interview with Valeri Lennin, President of the Benco Sales, we reveal how to stay safe when chemically stripping powder coated or painted parts.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX1JHwgmRQg[/embedyt]

RossKote (Kim Scott): Keeping your prices reasonable and powder coating is important to stay competitive, but restoration is labor intensive and time consuming. How do you manage both? Using an efficient method of chemical stripping can help keep those costs down. In this month long product focus on stripping, we sit down with the president of Benco sales, miss B17 herself, Valeri Lennon. Valeri is committed to bringing you quality as well as preserving small businesses availability and access to her line of efficient and effective products. She shares everything you need to know about how to get started stripping, using her methylene chloride based products. We talk safety, best practices, as well as some of the new, less toxic stripping products. Let’s get ready to level up your powder coater game.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Welcome to episode nine. I’m Kim Scott, your host of the powder coater podcast. Where we interview influencers and cover trending topics in the industry. So powder coaters can effectively learn and grow their business. Today’s episode was, inspired by a shout out to Brian Moreland. He’s been following our podcast since day one and he loves the show and he wrote to us a few weeks ago and wanted to know if we would consider interviewing someone in stripping. And so his email went, “I would consider myself a semi-pro barn coater, LOL. I’m wanting to move up into powder coating, bigger things, and I’ve been doing roll cages, buggy frames, wheels, et cetera. I was curious if you guys would be interested in having a show based on stripping and stripping chemicals. What chemicals work best? How effective are they on different materials and how long do you leave them submerged? Where do you buy them? What companies do you recommend?” Thanks, Brian. And to introduce today’s guests. We have an American made product, high quality control, proven effectiveness, no costly shipping.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And today we’re introducing Valeri Lennon, president and COO of Benco B-17. Hi, Valeri. Welcome to the show.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Hello, thank you for having me.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Thanks for that long winded introduction. Sorry about that. But I wanted to give a shout out to Brian for the inspiration. So how long have you been working in the industry?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I’ve been with Benco for a little over eight years now.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): We’re in Tennessee and I moved here. When the previous owner who had been in business for 40 years, decided to retire and a partner and myself purchased Benco from him. And it’s been an amazing adventure, it’s a great company.

RossKote (Kim Scott):It sounds like it. I will admit that we are Benco users ourselves, B17 .

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I think we started purchasing the product about three years ago. But what do you do there? What’s the day to day for you there?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): All aspects of the business. I manage the manufacturing, the plant manager reports to me. I work on new business new marketing, new ideas and new products.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): When we deal with new products the previous owner usually comes in since he was a chemical engineer. And he likes to keep involved because he misses it terribly, but there’s all kinds of things. And then Benco also has their own fleet of trucks that travel the United States, to deliver products.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): So we ship common carrier and we have our own trucks. It’s a wonderful benefit because our customers get to know our truck drivers, invite them in for lunch. It’s really personal. But in this industry, in this world today, truck drivers are hard to come by. So unfortunately it does create a little bit of a hiccup in shipping at times when we’re only down to two drivers or something like that.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): But otherwise it’s a busy day at Benco.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I bet.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Now you also have, I’m not sure of the relationship there, but there’s another company called Bestway. How are the two inter related or are they related at all?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): They were interrelated a number of years ago, in that my business partner owned Bestway and together we put Benco together with Bestway and essentially merged. Bestway had furniture, stripping products and Bestway is really now a branded product within Benco. They were a smaller sized company in comparison to Benco. And so we make and service the Bestway customers.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So there are other and I’m going to say this wrong methylene chloride, right?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Is that how you say it?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, we have methylene chloride based products, as well as non-methylene chloride products. With methylene chloride based products have been leading in the industry for so many years due to the fact that it’s the most cost effective way to strip. And it’s so quick that you’re minimizing your exposure to your chemical.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I’ve been with Benco for a little over eight years now.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It sounds like it. I will admit that we are Benco users ourselves, B17.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I think we started purchasing the product about three years ago. But what do you do there? What’s the day to day for you there?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): All aspects of the business. I manage the manufacturing, the plant manager reports to me. I work on new business new marketing, new ideas and new products.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): But otherwise it’s a busy day at Benco.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I bet.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Now you also have, I’m not sure of the relationship there, but there’s another company called Bestway. How are the two interrelated or are they related at all?

RossKote (Kim Scott): So there are other and I’m going to say this wrong methylene chloride, right?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Is that how you say it?

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Benco (Valeri Lennon): As long as you have your safe practices in place. It’s a very advantageous product to go with. And it’s blended of course, with other things. It’s not just straight methylene chloride.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Right, but there are other methylene chloride companies out there that sell this based products with this chemical. But what makes B17 so popular or so much better?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Because it’s the most cost effective and time efficient product that’s out there. It’s blended. It has a lovely blend of acids that helps permeate that coating in order for the B17. To the substrate, to delaminate the powder coat from it. You will notice when you use B17, you have sheets of powder-coat that come up.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): It’s because it’s been delaminated, essentially. It doesn’t eat away at the powder and because it doesn’t eat away at the powder, you don’t lose your strength in your. You will lose some stripper due to evaporation, depending on heat in the area, the ambient heat of course, inHawaii, I’m sure that you noticed a little bit more evaporation than somebody would in Wisconsin.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): But as long as you keep it covered and manage it properly, you won’t have a lot. We do have also some ingredients help minimize that evaporation and hinder it from going so quickly. But you will find that is the fastest and most effective. And then all you have to do is tap it off. It’s very infrequent that you would have a costly additive or anything like that to our B17.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So on your website you say that the 17 is having you give three reasons why it’s safer than other strippers and I’ll just name them.Cause it’s fast acting. You have less exposure. I think you’ve covered that already. And because it works without having to scrub which means you’re not interacting with it, hands-on where you don’t have to.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And because it’s completely neutralized with water, there’s less chemicals involved. So are those, some of the additives. That you put in there. That is what interacts with the water. How does it neutralize?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Let’s see here. How to explain it. When you use B 17, we recommend, it’s imperative that you have a water bath process.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You lower your wheel or your item. You’re going to strip into the B 17. You wait for it to delaminate. You take it out of the B 17, allow all the excess to drop back into the B 17 tank, and then you move your item to a water bath tank. The purpose of the water bath tank is to neutralize any acids that were left in the nooks and crannies and to trap any trace chemicals.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And that water will do its best when it’s at a neutral pH between eight and 10. Once you’ve put it through the water. It’s like a 32nd minute thing. It’s not if I leave it in there for an hour, then you can take it out and you can rinse it because it will be chemical free and once dry, you can re-powder.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And so it’s a pretty quick from beginning to end, it’s a pretty quick turnaround, which is especially great for the smaller customers that need to have quick turn around in order to push this.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah it was, I must admit I, my husband was going, definitely was one of those people and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, where they, once they got it and they started utilizing it or using it for stripping, it was like, why did we wait this long?

RossKote (Kim Scott): I guess we should have probably invested in it a lot longer, because we had been struggling. We’d been buying stripper at homeDepot or Lowe’s or wherever we could get it, of course, being at an island, if somebody comes in and beats you to that shelf then you’re really out of luck is in you’re waiting another week or two before it gets restocked.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So it has really been. A godsend for our business and has allowed us to. Keep our prices reasonable, especially with rim stripping and powder coating. So that’s definitely helped our business tremendously and I totally recommend the product in that sense.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I’m so happy to hear that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Yeah. It’s good. So recently, We got the notice from you guys, I think late last year, because recently the EPA banned the active ingredient in many paint strippers from retail stores. If you are a professional with a business ID, you can buy your product. Has this hurt your sales and in any way?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): No, it has not. And let me give you a little bit of the background with the EPA. I was involved in all the panel discussions as well as the previous owner, the chemical engineer.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And the whole reason the EPA went this route. There were too many people. There were a few people, I shouldn’t say too many.There were a few people that purchased over the counter methylene chloride based products from retail stores, but they did not read the label nor heed any safety warning, and may have locked themselves in a room to strip something.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And they were overcome by the fume. It’s similar to somebody closing their garage door and letting their car run. You can’t do that.You need good ventilation. So with that said, they took it out of the retail market and because businesses typically have OSHA standards in place and practicing safe stripping methods. And because it’s so important in the industrial world to have that efficiency, that’s why we can say we can sell it as a business to business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And so basically, how does. I guess you just need to show a business ID. Of course they were already buying so I think you already had that information.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What exactly does a business need to provide you guys, what are they looking for?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): What we need to have, and it may never be looked at, we don’t know, but what we do is we need to prove we’re selling to a business. And so a federal ID number is always the easiest thing to do. Federal ID number a sales tax number.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Anything that proves that you’re in a registered business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And that’s it. And so for powder coaters that don’t meet these minimum requirements is there another product that they can buy or are they just stuck with going to home Depot every time?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): No, and going to home Depot, they won’t find a powder coat stripper.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): We have two products. We have our B96, which is a cold product. But it’s going to take awhile, you might leave something in overnight or it might take three hours. And then we have our new B 17 eco-strip. Which is a product that you need to heat, it only needs to heat to 185 degrees.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And we have some customers that have been using it in Chicago and they found that they’re getting an hour and a half strip times on Durango wheels, Porscha wheels, all the wheels that have been pretty stubborn. But they’ve been getting really fast stripped times. So a lot of people really like.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Of course you have to be able to have a heated tank or we have heated tanks we’ve developed that work really nicely. And so for the people just starting out, they can do that. OrI have a starter kit, which is a drum with a drum heater and they can get the whole package, shipped to them with a drum of the eco strip and the heating the drum with a drum heater so that they can.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): That way on a small scale it’s a 55 gallon drum. It’s a 50 gallon metal drum with a drum heater. And then we also supply the 55 gallons of the eco strip product. And in that package comes some safety gear the rubber apron, a disposable face masks and gloves, and then also a siphon pump to transfer the liquid into from the poly drum that it comes in to the metal drum where you heat, you might want you to fill the heat, you fill it halfway so that you’ve got room for disbursement.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And then you save the other stripper in your polydrum for future use.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s really nice because I’ll tell you, I’m tired of hearing my husband getting, looking at his arms, getting burned and stuff. And

sometimes I think he’s just immune to it now at this point, because he’s been stripping for so long.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And we stripped in our other business, we used to have a refinishing business. And so we were used to already stripping or using chemical stripping and stuff. I think he’s just become immune to it, but it’s nice to know that there’s an eco-friendly. But what’s the startup price on this initial package?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Do you have a starting price?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, I do. I have a special on the eco-strip start-up kit. It’s $1,699.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Wow.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): It doesn’t include delivery. If you get it delivered on our truck, it’s only $50 and typically we’ll. Yeah. And we do freight quotes for people. And typically on the starter kits I split the shipping if it has to go, if it has to get skidded and put on common carrier.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s nice. I think that’s actually pretty reasonable, especially if you’re just a single guy.

RossKote (Kim Scott): You can use the eco strip at home. There’s a lot of home coaters people working out of their garage or their barns. And I think that’s a great, relatively inexpensive way to get started and start saving time and effort.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes. I’ve been really excited about this new product because we’ve had large and small that have switched from another competitor’s product.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): That was a heated product. And they said they love it because they’re getting faster strip times it’s less than half the cost and their sludge buildup is minimal. The eco strip just becomes a little murky and after you strip for a quite a long time, all you have to do is let it cool. And then pull the the eco strip chemical off the top.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): With a pump of some sort, and then you have a little sludge at the bottom and all you have to do is evaporate that, and it becomes inert.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Great, and no more burns, right?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): No burns, but let’s go back to the burns. I understand that it is an extremely aggressive product and it’s an important product in certain businesses because of the speed.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): But safety gear is extraordinarily important. A lot of people find. Let me back up. I’ve had customers that had 3000 gallon tank of B17, and they stripped over 5,000 wheels a week with a conveyor system. Nobody came in contact with the B17 and they had no burns. And then there are other people that have hoists, a gantry system with the hoist and they lower it down and they bring it up and the burns are very infrequent. But then I hear about people getting burned all the time and I keep asking them, are you wearing your safety gear? Do you have your gloves and your apron? It’s a great product, but it’s not real user-friendly I will admit that, but you just have to be cautious.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I think it’s all about perception too.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I’ve not heard any kind of negatives, feedback. If I did, I pretty much just blame it on the user because, you’re putting the product out there, but you’re also being very straightforward about the kind of best practices that you need to do that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): You actually have a page on your website called best practices. I think that a lot of, if you do get any negative feedback, people are being, I don’t know.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Not even that it’s the person that says, “oh, I just have this little thing to strip and I’m in a hurry. And it’s, since it’s a little thing, it’ll be fine”.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And the minute they go to put it in there, they drop it. And it splashes back up on them because they were in a hurry and they didn’t stop to put their face gear or their covering on, sometimes it’s just as simple as that. So you just can’t let your guard down. It just safe practices.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Exactly. Do you sell now you sell it by the barrel and you sell it by five gallon containers.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s the only two sizes correct?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): No, I sell B17 and eco strip in 275 gallon totes as well.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, okay. That’s good to know. Okay. I didn’t know that. We’re unique out here in Hawaii and when I was cost comparing the barrel to the five gallon, I didn’t know about these totes. I somehow didn’t even consider that, we actually opted for the five gallon because it was palatable. And we could actually, we couldn’t really get around the shipping. Shipping is just shipping here in Hawaii. And so we actually opted for I think we bought 30 or 45 gallons.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yeah for a bigger pallet it’s 32.

RossKote (Kim Scott):Yeah, 32. Yeah. And they palleted, wrapped it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It didn’t get damaged in shipping. And I think that says a lot about your company too, is the way that you make sure that a everything was wrapped. Cause I tell you, I order a lot of stuff from the main land, whether it’s a metal equipment or anything, and some of the stuff that just comes here and, it just gets damaged in shipping.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I was so worried about this product coming here because of what it was. And it just came so quickly. It was still that all the wrapping and shipping was in intact not disturbed at all. Nothing had spilled, nothing was broken, nothing was punctured. It was just awesome. And it was a big relief.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Because I didn’t want any of the shippers getting hurt or anybody in between all that. Like what’s this product and who’s this company and everything like that, so I was really excited that you guys took the time to wrap it just right.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Safety is key. We try to culture our customers, and I want all my employees to be safe. We all want good things to happen for everybody. And if they’re buying B 17, it’s going to help them make money. But it’s all about keeping it safe before it even begins.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And I think that’s a really valuable core thing that you just said, because I think that maybe.

RossKote (Kim Scott): The buyer knew how much safety and attention to detail that you guys do. They probably wouldn’t take better care of themselves as well, just bleeds into itself. So it’s good that we’re talking about this because I don’t think a lot of users maybe that get burns more frequently if they knew how important it was, from how serious you take that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And there’s, the user’s safety and wellbeing, may be they would probably pay a little bit more attention to safety. Let’s continue on with best practices. Oh, go ahead. Yes.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Oh, good. In fact, I was going to talk about that. I was going to say another important thing to consider when you use these B 17 is you must have proper ventilation.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, exactly. Set up and proper ventilation.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes. We’d like to tell people too, because them ethylene chloride vapors are heavy and you will lose some as your stripping is going on. You will lose some, and sometimes it’ll float over the top of your strip tank and down to the ground.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): That is where your vapers are. So you want to think of silt in water. You want to gently roll them out of your workspace and preferably into the fresh air because they just vaporize and become inert. And just roll them out. If you over fan them, then you’re putting them up into your breathing space and you don’t want to do that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So are you recommending some kind of over head ventilation? If you are working in a small space, then I would say the main thing is that you have some sort of fan or vent right over your area there. Or if you’re working in an open space, just make enough room to to do all of this work, have this special session in your shop area, where that’s all you’re doing.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes. And actually, because your vapers are rolling to the ground, it’s as simple as putting a box fan at about knee height to roll the vapors out of your work area. Because sometimes if you over ventilate, think of silt and water, you want them to roll out of the way.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You don’t want them to get forced up into your breathing area by over ventilating them. So just a simple box fan on low helps move them out.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Okay.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s good to know. I’ll get my husband on that because I don’t think we have that set up just yet. We are bigger, so we just let the vapers do their thing when he pulls it out.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But I think something simple, like that would be ideal.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, too many people think they need to suck it up into an overhead ceiling fan or an overhead feeling exhaust, but you’re pulling the vapors up through your breathing area. So that’s not necessarily the smartest way to do it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And we just bought something from Granger.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I was gonna look online. I just bought, he wanted this product. It’s called a spill pallet, we bought it from Granger. I’m not sure if you sell them. It’s back ordered, so I can’t even get it here until like probably the end of the year. But are you recommending something like that? If you have the stripped container, the round barrel one,

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You said a spill pallet?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, it’s called a spill pallet. This one is 53 by 50 it’s just a giant square.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I see it. Okay. I just looked it up, I Googled it. I see what you’re saying. Something, that would be a good thing to put under neath your strip tank, especially if you’re in an area where there’s where you don’t have concrete or some of the industrial areas, they’ll have a concrete floor and they’ll have a moat around their strip tank or excuse me, a border around their strip tank.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): So that if there is a spill, it doesn’t go any further than a small confined area. So that actually is a very good idea. And in our B 17 starter kit, we sell the overpack drum with that, which is the same concept, that high density polyethylene, it’s the big yellow 95 gallon overpack drum, where we still have starter kit with that a drum of B 17 and then all the safety gear for just under a thousand dollars.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I didn’t know you sold the whole kit there and maybe that, is that something new or have you always had that? Because I remember considering a metal strip tank buying one of those from you and having it shipped, but I thought, but shipping was going to just be outrageous if I did that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So we opted for the plastic container.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Okay. Now we just started that and actually you’ll see that promo on our website. Probably tomorrow, we ran it a while back and it was very popular. And I think it’s a really good way for people to get started.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think it is too. And I think everybody should be, if they’re complaining about getting jobs done on time, maybe they’ve got too many jobs and they can’t get them done fast enough, where sandblasting just cutting it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): This is definitely, it was a game changer for us, but let’s continue on. So what substrates or types of metal can use to use with B 17, any of them, all of them, none of them. What are, what do you have?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): B 17 works really well on if we’re talking wheels, steel, aluminum.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): The only thing that it’s a little bit too aggressive for is if you have a lot of magnesium or softer metals coming through. You need to back down to our B 14, but most wheel refinishers are doing aluminum, alloy wheels, heavy duty, and B 17 is the way to babysit it. When you first start using beef 17, you need to babysit it and check every three to five minutes until you understand how quickly things go.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): So that you don’t have any mishaps, B17 will etch your substrate slightly, but a lot of people love that for re-adhesion. But if you leave something in your B 17 overnight, it’ll look like Swiss cheese in the morning. So that’s why I say you’ve got to babysit it’s you understand it for awhile.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And then once you get to understand it and you’ve been using it for a while, you can say this wheel is probably going to take 20minutes to 40 minutes, and then you know to check it. Correct? I assume that’s what you guys do.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Exactly. And he’s I don’t know. He’s done enough stripping now where I know, he knows how long it takes.

RossKote (Kim Scott): He doesn’t even have to go back and check it. Now he just puts it on a timer and then, he’s that confident with it and I think it just takes a little bit of time. There’s probably a little bit of a learning curve there. But I agree with you, you just have to learn your product and learn your business using this product. This next question. It was an interesting one because I guess, because we live in the tropics, my husband never really got a heating band, so we actually don’t even use the heat band, but I guess we’re in the tropics. So maybe it’s not as critical as maybe someone that lives in a colder climate.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Can you go over that?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, we do not recommend any heating on B 17, because if you heat B 17 over the point of 104 degrees, a 100, 104, then you’re lease those methylene chloride, vapors, and you’re going to upset that wonderful blend, that strips so quickly and efficiently. Yes, the eco strip needs to be heated because you have to heat, it strips at 180.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Now the cold climates, some people find that there are B 17 slows down that’s normal because the chemicals start to get a little cooler so they can heat it to 80, but never recommend over that. And most people just,it might double their strip time, but they don’t mess with heating it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Sounds good. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff, but I think we’ve talked about containers. Were there any other things that we wanted to cover with containers just that you sell them?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): We do sell them, but a lot of people that are in this industry can fabricate like easily.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): If that’s the case, I welcome a phone call and I will help you design your tank. It needs to be heavy gauge steel and heavy duty welds and other things. And I have examples of photographs that I can show them to help them with their tank. And then because everybody’s business and workflow is so different, they may think of something totally different than what we’ve made.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): That’s much more efficient for them. Everybody in this business, I find is so creative and they understand their workflow and what they need. So I’m happy to work with them in any way I can to help them achieve what they need to make a better business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s great. It’s nice to know that when you’re buying a product that you’re getting that comradery or relationship that you’re going to help them get started or established or help them solve their problems when it comes to stripping and chemicals and stuff. That’s awesome. Cause I never really would’ve thought of doing that. Like I guess Ross would just be, I don’t know, Googling it somewhere else, but it’s nice to know.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We can just pick up the phone call and call you guys.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, please. When you buy from Benco you’re entering a relationship, we’re all in this together.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And you’re certainly right about the creativity of custom coaters that hands down, they are probably the most industrialist people,I have met in terms of problem solving.

RossKote (Kim Scott):Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I was just gonna say I learn new things every day from my customers.

RossKote (Kim Scott):Yeah, so let’s go over a maintenance on the product.And maybe there’s a difference between what you do with B 17 and B 17 E on some of your other products. But first and foremost, how do you remove the sludge?

RossKote (Kim Scott): What’s the best actions to take when you’re doing that part.

Benco (Valeri Lennon):Okay. Alright, as far as removing sludge, don’t bother removing it until it starts to getting in your way. Because you don’t want to aerate your product, in order to encourage evaporation. Everybody has a different way they like to do it.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I’ve built some prototypes of, a shovel looking thing with that’s perforated so that you can pull your sludge up. Everybody has a different way. They like to do it, but typically it’s a, some kind of a screen. And hopefully soon I will have something I will, I can sell that will help.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): But even a perforated shovel to pull up the sludge, allow all the liquid to fall back into your tank. And then you take that sludge and you can put it out in the sun and cook it until it totally dries. And a lot of people to be extra cautious, they’ll take that dry sludge, pop it in their oven and make sure it’s crispy.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Because once you do that, all the chemicals have evaporated and you will not be creating any problems by disposing it in a dumpster at that point in time. And to take extra measure, you can put some baking soda in it, mix it with some bentonite or some pot ash, whatever you have and then it’s safe.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): As far as maintaining the B-17 itself, the sludge.That’s all you have to do. You do have to maintain your water bath or prepare your water bath. You can use it over and over again until it gets too dirty to stand, but you just want to make certain, you can take a cheap swimming pool, tester, check the pH, make sure the pH is between eight and 10 for your best results. Because you don’t want any acid left on there to try to re-powder because it won’t get your best results.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You can manage the pH with, depending on the sizeof your water tank with baking soda, or we sell caustic liquid. If you have a huge water tank, caustic liquids, really economical. Everybody does something different. Some people like to use TSP.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You put that in the water bath to keep the pH between 8 and 10.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, okay.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Now one of the other things that I see my husband do, I’m not sure if it’s recommended or what, but he doesn’t fill it all the way to the top. He leaves it, more like about a third of the way up to the tank. He’s only just enough to where it can submerge and cover that rim.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Cause obviously when you put something in, the volume of the water, of the the liquid goes up. So I would guess that you’re recommending that people don’t fill it all the way up to the top.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): We’re talking about the B 17 tank, correct? Yes, because you have to plan for displacement.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And a lot of times I recommend that they take their tank that they’re going to use and they put their normal sized product. Typically it’s a wheel, you put a wheel in there and then fill it with 17 just to top off. So you’re just a little bit over the top of that wheel and that would be your maximum fill that you need in order to strip. And then, once they pull the wheel out, they’ll see where that level is because it’s best to have your level no higher than 12 inches from the top of the tank, because of that vaporization of the methylene chloride. Once you pull your wheel out and the vapors will go back into the liquid and it will be maintained.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. It made sense to me, a lot of people who are just considering maybe even buying B 17, these are some of the points that we need to cover so that when they do get it, they understand exactly what they need todo. So this is great. So let’s talk safety gear You have on your website, a page just for this.

RossKote(Kim Scott): And I know it sounds like a lot of what is on this list is actually included in that kit or that starter kit that we were talking about earlier, correct?

Benco (Valeri Lennon):Yes, it is. We recommend heavy duty rubber gloves over 30 mLs. We have 30, I believe we have 35 and 50 mL gloves. And then on the starter kit, we supplied the rubber apron and that’s great.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Cause it goes down below the knees typically, unless of course you’re seven feet tall. And then, if it’s a matter of covering your skin then that comes with a face shield. Face shields have been hard to come by. We used to have some really nice face shields with our kits. But with COVID we’ve had to go to what we could get.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): So I apologize if the face shields are a disappointment, hopefully we’ll get back to our normal one. We always include in that kit, a calcium gluconate tube, which is salve for acid burns. So if it splashes on you for some reason and misses your glove and hits your skin, rinse it with water real quick, and then you put the calcium gluconate on, and that helps neutralize any acids that are on your skin to minimize that burn.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, that’s good do sell that separately? I think we can order some of that today. Yeah. Okay. We missed I know that in terms of wha twe’ve used in, after burns or whatever is like the silver cream it’s like a cream that has silver nitrate in it, I guess.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I don’t know if it’s, I’m saying nitrate, but it does have silver in it. So that actually helps heal the skin. I ended up with a second degree burn on my hand many years ago, not from stripping. Was pouring hot water. It was one of those kitchen disasters.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It was one of the worst things that ever happened tome. And I’ve been lucky enough not to be in any car accidents or anything like that, but I’ll tell you getting a third degree burn on your hand is just one of the worst things that can happen. Yeah, and they put some kind of a silver at that clinic on the hand.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And that really helped too. So it’s nice that you’re, having all this available to people that they can come back in order over and over again on the gloves. I remember ordering gloves for Ross and he. There were two kinds, right? There was one that was thicker, but then something, I remember her talking about which one I wanted and one, actually, if you get it near a razor, if it cuts really easily there’s two kinds of gloves, right?

RossKote (Kim Scott):One does one thing. And when does the other right?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): The ones that cut easily, those are the ones that are meant for the furniture strippers that need to have more pliability in their fingers. And then the other ones, the 50 mLs are electrical linemen gloves, that didn’t quite meet spec for the electrical alignment.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And we were able to get some in that’s why we offer them at such a great price. We do quality check them here. We blow air and make sure there’s no holes.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yeah. Makes sense. And what sizes do the gloves come in?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): They come, some of them come in size, 10, 11, 12, and some just come in small, medium and large.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): It just depends on which glove you go with.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And it’s just men’s sizes? Are there women’s sizes too, or just men’s?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): A universal size. I have small hands and I use the nine in the big, heavy duty gloves and they do pretty well for me. If you can put your item on a hoist or a hook or something like that.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): So you don’t have to come in contact with it until after your water bath. That is the safest thing.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Okay. And in terms of I would assume if you’re in a job shop, hopefully you’re wearing at least tennis shoes, not slippers or flip-flops or whatever, mainland people call slippers. We call them slippers here.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But anyways yeah, I would assume steel-toed boots or some kind of, heavy duty work boot or protection on your feet in case something does happen. That seems like the more likely that a drip would happen and it would land right on top of your foot.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Absolutely. And that’s goes back to safe practices.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): If you’re going to be in the shop, you should have steel toed boots. You should have heavy duty boots on not necessarily pennies or flip-flops or what do you call them? Slippers?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, big controversy here in Hawaii with slippers versus flip-flops. And it’s good to know that you’re on all these boards and that you’re really paying attention to your business and, like that you’re involved in that part of the community.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): There’s so much misinformation about this, about methylene chloride based supers. And then the other thing that I didn’t touch on that probably should have so many people think that methylene chloride based strippers are carcinogenic and methylene chloride is not a carcinogen. It’s been tested and tested.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Kodak did a 20 year study on their employees that were exposed to far more vapors, then what our stripper would expose you to for20 years. And there was no incidents increase of cancer

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RossKote (Kim Scott): I guess that’s been the thing for us is when we, when we have our employees, Ross has always been the one to manage the stripping part of the job, just because he does want to limit his access to the employees.

RossKote (Kim Scott):How do you have any insights or tips on. In terms of, allowing employees or just maybe designating one person to be in charge of stripping all the time.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): That would be unique train, at least one person. It depends on how much volume you’ve got going, but one or two people that are really well-trained on the safety of using the product is important.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): And Like when we hire anybody here, we have a list of what we go through for safety. And we check it off as we go. And then they signed to say, yes I listened to you. I understand. And then they have some personal accountability to make certain that they’re very safe because they’ve been trained.

Benco(Valeri Lennon): And I find that a lot of customers that do that have better success. Then any kind of loose training, they make it a little bit more stringent and formalized. And that helps.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I agree. And I think that’s it just someway as a business owner to protect your business is to really pay attention to the safety and the OSHA standards because it’s there for a reason to protect your business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Okay, as we’re wrapping up, talk about the specials that are on your website or navigating your website, what’s the best way to order this product, whether it’s the starter kit or just a reorder, what’s the best way to contact you guys?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): The best way to do that is to send an email or call.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You can send an email to office@bencosales.com or you can call our main number, which is on the site, which is 931-484-957. We have customer service people here that answer the phones and they will help you as much as it possibly can get you exactly what you want. If you have more questions than I typically get the calls and I can answer any question.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): I did recently hire a national sales person and he’s learning things very quickly. And so he would be another contact that we could put you in contact with, but you will be taken care of. It’s not just punching something on the internet and saying, send this to me. We like to help because of course there are many times when people call in and say, I have something that’s way too big to submerge in my tank.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): We have a semi paste version of B 17. And it’s our B15. And then we explain how to use that, the best practices, how to clean it up and all of that. And it’s much the question and answers gives you much more information.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s good. And I like the fact that you actually put up regularly when the trucks are leaving, because it helps me time, my order. So you guys generally keep that well up to date or you’ll post it on social media. I believe you have an Instagram.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Yes, we have an Instagram and a Facebook and the office manager does a great job of posting that whenever there’s a change in shipping or we schedule up the next couple of months, she always posts it so people can plan ahead.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And I think I’ve even had conversations with her, a direct message on Instagram. So she, a lot of custom coaters, they’re just looking for that instant communication or connection. And I don’t know, I haven’t been messaging her recently, but I know that I have asked her. And that’s when I found out about the two different kinds of gloves was through a direct messaging on Instagram.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But yes, you guys are really responsive with the emails and getting back to us and stuff like that.So I’m so happy to have you on the show to really clarify. What your product does, how to use it, how to protect yourself. And I really appreciate you guys coming on to talk about it because so many custom coaters need this product today.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So thanks for joining us.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Thank you for having me I appreciate it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Awesome. And you’re having that special I guess the starter kit should be up on the website tomorrow. Is that what you said?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): It should be? I asked my web guy to put it back up for tomorrow and we’ll probably run that special till Thanksgiving.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Give people plenty of time.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And tell us about it one more time.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): The special is this two starter kits available. One. TheB17 starter kits, which gives you the big yellow overpack drum, which holds, it’s a 95 gallon, so you won’t have to fill it very high, of course. And it gives you a drum of B 17.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You get an apron, you get heavy duty gloves, you get a siphon pump, you get the burn cream and a face shield, and that’s $999. That does not include tax or shipping. The the starter kit for the eco strip includes a metal drum with a drum heater for your heating. It includes a poly drum full of our eco strip chemical.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Benco (Valeri Lennon): You also get an apron and gloves and a face shield and the siphon pump and that’s $1,690. Without tax or shipping.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And you’re paying just a little bit more for that, but you’re saving your skin and I’m interested in trying this eco strip. Now, I think we’ll try to order that on, a couple of it comes in a five gallon or does it only come in the drum?

Benco (Valeri Lennon): It only comes in drums. It doesn’t make sense to do it in five gallons, but you give me a call and let me know. If we’ve got a customer that says it only works, if we can do it in this kind of a quantity or this kind of a size, there are many times that we can help you out. So it’sjust ask the question and we’ll figure it out.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): Typically it’s just the 55 gallon drum.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I’m thinking of all the people that do Yeti mugs or smaller, just really small stuff that could really. Yeah.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You’re right. They can, that’s something new that I didn’t think about in that. And you could just use a Crock-Pot, a big Crock-Potto heat it.

Benco (Valeri Lennon): You’re not talking about a huge investment to get started.

RossKote (Kim Scott):Yeah, I think that, I think that’s, you never know, who’s listening to the show, Valerie.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Thanks again for joining us today. And I’d like to thank our supportive followers and fellow powder coaters out there. I hope you’ve learned something new about your powder coating business. Please comment, share, follow, and like the podcast. And if you have a topic you’d like to discuss, email us at info@mauipowderworks.com.

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Industry Insider: Powder Coating Trends with Kevin Coursin

June 6, 2022 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]In our exclusive interview with Kevin Coursin, executive director of the Powder Coating Institute, we reveal current and future trends for the global coatings market. He’s here to paint a broader outlook to the powder coating market and discuss what its like to be in this industry.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Today. We’re talking about the state of our industry. With someone who has their hands, knee deep in it. Kevin Coursin is the executive director of the Powder Coating Institute. He’s here to share some insights and highlights from the recent annual meeting. I’d like to tease out from him, some of the broader strokes, from the data he presented. In the hopes of giving you a bigger picture of our industry and what it may mean for you.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So how long have you been working in the industry and how did you get started?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I’ve actually been in the paint industry for 38 years now. Long time ago after I graduated from college with my engineering degree, I started working at one of the general motors assembly plants and being just a plant engineer, working on various projects.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): My boss came up to me after two years and said, Kevin, I got good news giving you a 10% raise; and I was extremely happy with that. He says, but you’re going third shift. You’re going to be the maintenance supervisor and the paint shop. And that’s how I was introduced to paint. Now it was liquid paint. It wasn’t powder back then that they had, but I learned a lot about the processes about the equipment and what it took to maintain it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So it was quite an education for two years. After that the came up to me and said, Hey, Kevin, you’re an engineer and you’re in paint. There’s a new plant we’re building in Michigan, we would like you to transfer over there, give you a promotion and you’re going to install a new paint shop.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And I went and took it. Then it was again, quite an education that we had put together and working with a group. And then I learned how to design, how to build and manage putting it all in and starting it up. After that the market wasn’t as good in the automotive market. So I decided to change a little bit of direction, and I went to work for one of the system houses as a project manager and worked at myself into a general manager sales, and eventually became president of KMI systems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So I’ve done a lot over the years. Just recently here in beginning of February, I started at the Powder Coating Institute is the executive director.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s quite an exciting career. And I find that most of the people that have been in it as long as, 30 plus years or more 40 y’all kind of start in late.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And it all happens with that. And then it moves into powder. Would you agree?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, I think it depends which, which direction you, that you go into. I, again, when I first started there really that’s when powder coating was really at its infancy, so it wasn’t as much out there. And the automotive had been primary liquid, so that’s where my experience came.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Then when I came over and started working in the system’s houses. That’s where I started learning about powder and both in just regular powder paint. I learned about powder porcelain enamel but also did some liquid systems as well. Did multiple, different types of systems depending on what the customer would wanted to install at the plant.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I had a very broad education on a lot of paint equipment.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So PCI recently had their annual meeting on the state of power coating, but is there anything that stood out to you from the data that really intrigued you the most?

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Kevin Coursin (PCI): I think on the overall market data that it was there. When you see it globally the powder market itself is little over $10.4 billion.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And it sounds like a huge number by itself, but when you compare it against all the other types of coatings that are out there, whether it’s a house paint, auto, refinish, trailers, industrial market, that type of thing; it’s only just a little under 7% of the overall coatings market.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): The largest market itself out there is really the decorative, which is really the house paint with external and internal. That liquid paint type thing is the biggest market itself. So when you compare powder to just that it sounds like, we’re only a tiny little sliver. But when you compare the powder coating to other industrial liquid coating, which is only about 8% of the market, or wood liquid coating is 7%.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So that’s exactly the same as powder. But powder even exceeds the auto OEM original equipment suppliers or manufacturers use of it. And the auto refinish is about 6%. When you compare the powder to those other type markets, we have been growing over the years and have taken more and more of it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So it is still a growing market.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I found that right off the cuff, I found that really intriguing and encouraging too. Now on slide 11. In 2019, North America and Europe had negative growth rates. And that was the automotive production, black construction market and a flat manufacturing environment is what this slide is talking about.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I found that really intriguing because, they were seeing that we were headed for a slowdown in late 2019, but no one really knew what the news articles were referencing. And really you can say that powder was already giving us an indicator that we were heading for a slowdown. Would you agree with that?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, I would. And what was defined there was, it was working more on the annual basis. But if you would have broken it down and the data that they had on the quarterly basis, you could see that at the beginning of 19, things were moving along pretty well, but it definitely tailed down at the end of 2019.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): You could see that on a quarterly basis. So it was a pretty good indicator of things that we’re up and coming.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, just to continue on this slide 12, and I don’t want to drill down too deep because some of the smaller coaters like ourselves, we’re not really experiencing too much of a slow down locally.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think that the larger coaters or industrial coaters and line coaters. They are probably the ones that are being affected more on the higher points in the market. Which they’re just basically saying that we were down 1.5%. And overall the year will be down anywhere from 5 to 15%, which is pretty much in line with what national projections are for America in general for the economy.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Correct.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah. And again it can vary by market and like you said, some of the markets that you’re in, you haven’t seen as large of a hit, but in some of the markets that if you were dealing directly for an automotive supplier as a tier one or tier two, and that was a bulk of your work.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And they took a really big hit in quarter two this year because they had shut down all the assembly plants. So they definitely took a larger hit then there. But the overall average, when you take them all into account, it’s probably 10 to 15% down from the market, but again, some are doing better.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Some are not doing as well. So it really is how diversified you are or how tight you are to a single market.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): I think one of my favorite slides, is slide 20 because it really starts to dig down deeper into the overall custom coater market. And I was shocked by this figure on this slide, when it basically said that globally, there are over 42,000 custom powder coaters out there. Did that number shock you?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It did shock me also. This was the first year that we had actually started breaking down for the custom coater market. And when I saw this slide, I had to call up the consultant company that was doing all the research for us and I questioned them on it. I said, really? And he said, yeah, that’s what they are finding.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And in North America by itself there was over 6,000 that they had in just North America. And even that number, for just North America sounded quite large. Now what they don’t define is how large of a company it is. So that would include some of the very small, custom coater, little chop shops that are out there now.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They might only be coating a few wheels at a time, but I think they’re included in those numbers. So sometimes that big number, you gotta take a little bit with a grain of salt and just do not dive down or, do a bigger breakdown into the size of the company. We hope to do that into next year.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): To try and get a better picture of the various sizes of custom coaters and how many there are in different markets and what the revenue in those markets would be.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And just to note that on this slide, the definition of a custom coater, is a company that primarily custom coats. And that’s, if they are manufacturing a part and then powder coating it that part for another client, they’re not considered a custom (coater).

RossKote (Kim Scott): And they, on top of that, if they were to include those people, that number would double to the amount of custom powder coaters out there. That’s extraordinary.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, it is a big number. And it’s something, it just goes to show how large of a market it overall is. Even if you just break it down into the north America or the U S that there is quite a big group of those type companies out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Anybody into that market, or, you may think you have competitors, to say that you have 6,000 other ones, it can be a little bit leary. But again, we got to dig a little bit deeper into some of the numbers to break it down into size. Because there are some very large powder coaters, but there’s also some very small ones.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So breaking that range is going to be our next step to try and get a little bit better meaningful data.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think that’s going to be great for us all. And I really liked slide 21 because the majority of custom coaters are using stock colors and that’s like RALs, right?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, just the off the shelf, nothing special.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And if you think really when you get into a lot of the custom coaters, they’re offering a slate to a bunch of companies or people, if they want something done special and they’re not going to custom and get a formulation because they’re only spraying so small amount of it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And I think that’s where, the stock colors are pretty much the standard for them to use.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Now on the same side, it says, certifications play some role in the process. Are they talking about like PCI ones only, or just all kinds of certifications that are out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): No, there are a number of certifications that are out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): PCI is one of them that we have on the market. There are some others that can be done. And in fact, even some manufacturers have what they call their certification program. If you’re coating a product directly for them, they may have their spec and they’ll come in, even audit the facility to make sure that you are meeting a certification. So it can depend a little bit. There’s a lot of certification requirements out from the department of transportation in a lot of states. You have to get a certification. One might be from PCI, or it could be from one of the other areas that they may have, in order to be able to coat and provide product to them.

RossKote (Kim Scott): After this presentation was over. I started to think about what was presented on the slides and what it all meant for me, which is why I prompted to call you for an interview because I wanted to know. With powder supplies and global supply chains at risk now regarding China and the economy right now facing all nations, not just some, but all.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What does that mean for me as a powder coater? Especially a small guy. Is it going to be harder for me to get powder someday is pricing going to go up? What does that mean?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I guess that can be always a potential issue that could have occure of getting, and it may be a particular color because there is a raw material that might be coming from China.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And there’s a, if it’s a political dispute, there may be a short break in the action when, while they’re trying to solve it. It could be also from shipping standpoint how long it might take to be able to get some of those colors. It is an issue that’s out there. But I still think overall the world has gotten smaller and everybody has to sell to other people.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So there may be some short term as the politicians deal with issues. But overall, we want to sell to China and China wants to sell to us so it still does everybody good to keep the commerce sorta speak flowing.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I agree with that. I hope it does mean that. And because in the end, people are just people, we all want to do and continue about our business. So now the other part of this that got me thinking was like this reshoring of manufacturing in the United States. With potentiality of shortness in the market. What does this reshoring in manufacturing, I don’t even know if you could speak on it, or if much about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What does it all mean for us here? If you can comment on it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We definitely have seen a number of companies come in to do reshoring and bringing manufacturing back to the states. I think a lot has to do that, when there were a lot of these global companies were able to bring their money that they had over back into the states.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They’re doing more investment here. Some of the issues that you were talking about the global supply chain disruptions. They feel if they bring it back here, they have more control over it. So they’re hedging their bet a little bit to bring it here. So I think you’re going to see more of that continue.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Again, once we can get through the pandemic side that we have here, that’s put a little bit of pause on some things, but I think you’ll see it pick back up again. Bringing more manufacturing plants into the states.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think it will be positive for both the smaller guys growing bigger and maybe some of the other guys sharing some of those jobs for us. Now at Maui Powder Works, we’ve been a member of PCI since 2017. And we joined primarily because it’s a late legislative body because we felt that it was important for us to become part of a greater community of coaters as well as to uphold, higher standards in the industry in terms of coating and what we’re bringing about in our product line. But what is PCI and why should other custom coaters care?

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Kevin Coursin (PCI): The Powder Coating Institute, it is a group of suppliers and users that have come together.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Number one goal is that we want to grow the powder coating market itself. But in doing so we recognize that there’s steps that have to go along with it to make sure it happens. One of them is educating, PCI has a number of workshops and webinars. We work on standards. We have a events like the powder coating week that we put on again for education and where people can interact and network.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We have our technical publications. We have the Powder Coating Tough magazine, which is exclusively published for the powder coating market itself, and lot of good articles, learning new things, how to to do some items there. We actually are working on the Fifth Edition of the Powder Coating Handbook.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It’s in the final editorial revisions right now. And it looks like we’ll be releasing it in early January next year. And it’s upgraded with all the latest and greatest new technologies that are out there. A one-stop if your powder coater, and you want to learn something or learn, find out if you have a problem, you can go to it as a handbook.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Those are the big things that we want to work on from a PCI standpoint. The other thing we do is we do have our certification program. Again, we talked a little bit about it before, but it’s really a quality program. We want to make sure that the processes that are being used are being controlled and you’re doing what you say you’re going to do and have all the proper training and documentation.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So you can make sure you’re very consistent going through it. But I think in, for the end users that are certified. With the quality program they do get a more consistent and better quality out. It does save them money in the long run because they have less downtime and can produce more through the system itself.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And I think one of the most or two of the most underrated things about PCI that maybe people know or don’t know is even if you’re not a member and you have a troubleshooting question or a problem that you need help solving in your powder line, you can actually write the Powder Coating Institute.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And you will actually help try to troubleshoot that problem for that coater. That’s true right?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Oh, yeah. We do get the inquiries in by email or there’s actually a contact us on our website and we get things in, I actually received one today and it does come to me.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So I’m the first person that looks at it. It happened to be from an architect and he had an issue on how it is to do some touch-up for powder coating product that was out in the field. And I was able to go out to some of our powder suppliers. With this particular issue, I get back some results from them. And then I send back and say here’s something that you can do.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Just one little example of what we do. And we get a number of them throughout the year.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote (Kim Scott): And I think the other underrated thing, or the thing that I was shocked, I learned this at the custom coater forum when I went a couple of years ago, is that you actually have this thing called, peer groups. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Oh, yeah, I am one of the facilitators for one of the groups, so I am intimately involved with it. And right now it’s jointly managed between the Powder Coating Institute and the Chemical Coaters A ssociation. But we have three groups, they’re built of up to 10 companies and we set them up so that they’re, noncompeting, they’re in different locations throughout the U.S.; different markets, but they all doing the one thing that’s common. They’re applying powder coating to products. So with that in mind, we meet twice a year, typically one of the companies hosts it and the other individuals come in there and it’s two days we’re at the plant.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We actually do an audit. We walk around and put it into a paint term, it’s an unvarnished information back to the company of what they found and it’s meant to be informative and to help them. Likewise, when you are one of those individuals that you go to the plant and you do the audit, while you’re walking around, you may see something that you can go, that’s a great idea.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I can take that and incorporate that back into my operation. And the individuals that have been part of this find is very good, both from a quality standpoint of learning new things, how to do it, but they also, then they come to know each other. Trust each other, so they can send out an email.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I’ve got this kind of problem. Anybody experienced this before and get some information back from them. So it is a very good program, like I say, we have three groups right now. We are in the process of forming our fourth group. So we hoped we have several that have expressed interest and we hope to find enough more that the starting sometime in 2021, we can get that another group going.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I, of course everybody was trying to get me on their group because we were exceptional coaters. It was just that we were in Hawaii.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Stay with us. So they were like, oh no, you want to join my group? No, join my group.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But I really felt wow, this is this is so much more than what I had anticipated as being a member of PCI, was to have this opportunity to do that. And and get to know possibly other coaters that have been in the game a little longer than I have or bigger than me. And how can I scale my business to, it seemed intriguing to me, but also just, having that shoulder to lean on or get confident with, if they’re going to come in and take a look at what I have it keeps you on your toes, but I think it’s a great program that you guys need to maybe get out a little bit more because it seems interesting to be a member of that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, we’ve only really got two years of it under our belt. This would have been the third year, but we’ve had to cancel both meetings the spring and the fall meetings because of the issues that we’ve had with the COVID this year. So really next year will be. I guess a repeat.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So we’ll call it year three still. So we are trying to grow it and we are trying to figure out how we can get the word out to people and we appreciate you bringing it up because I think with your podcast again, it’s just another way of getting the information out to people and maybe they’ll get interested to be able to find out some more about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. So now as executive director, I know this is a new role for you. What do you hope to accomplish, with PCI in the coming years or rather, what do you want?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I guess as the executive director, I’ve got a couple items that are, number one, then two on my list is to grow the powder coating industry and increase membership for the Powder Coating Institute.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): But that’s just the, I think the ultimate goal, if we provide the service, I think all that will we’ll come with it, but we would like to, I want to add and improve the education webinars, things like that. And updating the Powder Coating Handbook, again, getting that out to our members so that they can use that to improve their equipment and their systems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I would like to, as you mentioned before, the peer group. We’d like to grow those to the more groups themselves, because we really think it’s important. And it’s a really nice thing for custom coaters to do. Increase the certifications, both for the custom coaters, as well as the OEMs. We think that’s a good quality program that’s really especially made for the powder coating industry. That is, probably very cost-effective overall from a training and learning and making sure that you can do it. And a lot of them use it from a marketing standpoint because they can say that they are certified and try and get additional business. The other areas that I think we’re going to be doing some more work in and we’ve started this year on, is trying to develop more into the alternative substrates, like wood and MDF or plastic and ceramics.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We think powder coating can really grow into those markets which primarily had been done by in the liquid. But we can do it more efficiently. And then we’ve got a committee that’s dedicated to right now that we’re working on to develop some technical data, some brochures and everything on that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): The other areas in the architectural market for all the architecture that’s coated and all that, the specifying that comes from architects. And we’re trying to work right now with another association. That’s specifically markets to those for developing specs. But they don’t have any spec whatsoever to talk about powder coating.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So as an industry, we’re going to work on it and hand it to them and say, insert this into your standards. And again, trying to get people to not only grow and choose powder, but also to do it right.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Now in 2021 in February 23rd through the 26th, in Orlando, Florida, you guys are going to have your custom coater forum. But incorporating in that is earlier on in the week and you guys have coating workshops. They’re powder coating 101 workshops. The basics is what this is called. And I went in 2018. I didn’t go to the workshop. I flew in as a presenter and just attended the custom coater forum.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But I was amazed at how many people were actually in that room getting and learning that powder coating 101. It was full.

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Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah we, in this past February we had 75 people that were in for that workshop alone. And it’s a two day workshop and that runs concurrent with the custom coater forum.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And again, there, we have typically around 40 to 50 custom coaters and there’s a whole set of speakers and tracks that are dedicated to the customer coater market and companies. And then some of it is business. Some of it is, we had some round table discussions and we also have some technical presentations and for 2021, we’ve got the program pretty well all set up and have some great speakers coming in.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And we’re going to be talking about certification and peer groups, again, just trying to educate those on there. We have someone coming in to talk about automation for custom coaters. We have another individual that’s gonna be talking about troubleshooting and different ways to do that and solve problems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So we’re trying to tax different areas and be helpful and very meaningful for someone that’s coming in there to spend their time. After that we do have a two days that follow, which is we call our technical conferences and there we have papers on everything from batch coating, to automation, to new technologies.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So there’s a lot of different sessions that you can pick and choose which one you’re interested in going to, and while that’s going on, we do also have a, a tabletop exhibits that the suppliers will be there. I think we currently have 74 suppliers who hopefully gain a few more that are going to be coming in, during lunch hour, where lunch is served right among there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So you can eat and walk around and talk and network and learn what’s new from the various suppliers. Or if you got a problem, go see a supplier and he’d be probably more than willing to help you out.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. If you think it’s going to be boring, it’s not. I wasn’t sure what to expect that first year I went and it was amazing.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We had one speaker was from Mighty Hook. I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, but I was amazed that he had a solid hour, and it wasn’t boring at all. They went really fast and how he could talk about just hooks in an hour. He was a true expert. We’re not sponsored by Mighty Hook today, just so you know, I’m not pumping them in any way, but I was just floored, how much he could talk about hooks and all the different ways to use it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So it’s cram packed. It’s always exciting. You get to meet the owners of the companies that are there. Steven from IFS and then they’re not just sitting up on a pedestal in their group. In the evenings, you go to the bar or the lobby and you get to have a personal conversation with them too.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It’s not cut and dry.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And everyone that attends there, you do have the industry experts. So if you have some things or you want to learn some things, they’re there and believe me, most like myself, we all like to talk. So if you come up to them, they’ll share, they’ll help.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They’ll do whatever you can. And come up to me and if someone’s got a problem, I can point out someone that you should probably go see and talk to, but it is a, great event. And it’s well worth the time there. And I know it’s a struggle for everybody to get out of their business to go to this.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): But believe me, it is worth while.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And the location, the Renaissance hotel there, that was really nice. I was impressed. I really liked that hotel and it seemed like a lot of the coaters were going to meet their family later that week to go to, Disney World, Universal and SeaWorld and stuff like that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So I think it’s a great location to have that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Especially like individuals like myself that come from the Midwest. They have to go to Florida for a few days it’s pretty nice.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Everybody was like, oh, don’t leave Kim. What do you mean you’re not staying for the technical conference? And I’m like, oh no, I didn’t know, there was this other thing. So I just came in for the custom coater thing, but everybody was like, no stay with us.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So I was bummed actually that I had to leave. But yeah I really enjoyed it and I look forward to next year to. It sounds like it’s might be happening. If the world doesn’t come to an end. It will happen. Thanks for joining us today, Kevin. I really learned a lot about, more about PCI, especially with the slides from the presentation. I thought it was it’s very nice of you guys to share this data. Others that may or may not be in PCI. So how can coaters get ahold of you, if they have questions?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Probably the easiest way to get ahold of me would be to just send me an email.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It’s kevin@powdercoating.org. Otherwise on the website, there is the office number that you can always reach me through that also.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s great. We’d also like to thank our supportive followers and fellow powder coaters out there. I hope you’ve learned something new about your powder coating business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Please comment, share, or follow us on this podcast. And if you have a topic that you would like to discuss, just email us at info@mauipowderworks.com.

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Why does powder coating matter for metal and antique restoration?

May 27, 2022 by pcnearme

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Powder coatings & Metal refurbishing

Consumers should know that powder coatings are set to be the fastest growth segment of the coatings world because of an increasing need to make old things look new again.

Powder coatings have been around since the 1950s with the rise of essential industrial coatings. It wasn’t till the 1980s that the everyday consumer caught on to the trend of coating for their own metal refurbishing projects. Today, Powder coaters both large and small offer the world with durable coatings.

Beyond its durability however, there are other various features that have the potential to attract consumers. Namely, it’s safer and more sustainable for clients, applicators and the environment.

Antique metal restoration and classic auto refurbishing can be a valuable local resource in the circular economy. Now more clients have access to getting the things they love restored locally, all around the world!

Smaller custom powder coating shops are better for restoration

That being said it’s no wonder custom coaters grew tremendously during 2020-2021, at the height of the pandemic. Staying at home allowed homeowners, automotive enthusiasts and DIYers to get projects they’d been putting off, completed. People shopped closer to home, to help support local services resulting in the growth of metal restoration, particularly the automotive refinishing market. Local coaters are doing considerably better; they’re not experiencing too much of a slow down despite the setbacks of Covid.

So why aren’t powder coatings used more everyday? To answer this question we need to address the larger paint coatings market.

Kevin Coursin, Executive Director of the PCI has been in the paint industry for over 40 years, says powder coatings are about 6% of the global coatings market. So it is still a growing market.

In North America alone there are about 6,000 powder coaters, both big and small using about 181 Kilo tons of powder or $1.3B annually. That’s small when compared to the 27.3B liquid paints that need harmful additives to keep viscosity before applying.

Big conveyor line powder coaters are harder to access for the individual restoration market, because they strictly work based on contract. The everyday consumer doesn’t need that level of service. Most custom coaters have the flexibility and adaptability to handle variable sized jobs, because they use a batch oven – think of an oversized kitchen oven.

Compared to other coatings, batch coaters in particular have been growing more and more each year. From your neighborhood garage coater to the workshop professional, the message about the process of powder coating is getting out. The peace of mind that clients have about a better coating that is healthier for home, work and play is priceless.
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Why Powder Coatings Are Safer

Andrew Pace, of The Green Design Center, has been consulting homeowners since the 90’s. Offering resources on healthier options for their home design needs. His clients are people with serious chemical sensitivities; or aware of the health hazards and pollutants found in homes, especially volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

He’s been recommending powder coated materials because they are VOC free, and thus reducing the overall chemical load in the homes of consumers. Andrew says “[for] the powder coatings industry, the fact that it’s going on dry. And it’s been baked in. Means that there are no volatile (organic compounds). Because there’s no solvent to evaporate. So the product is naturally VOC free. The product is by design VOC free.”

It’s no question that the health and safety of the end user is factored in for custom coaters. And for the long term enjoyment and use, it is also beneficial for the pockets of clients.
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Is Metal Restoration Worth It?

There’s nothing greater than the satisfaction of refurbishing a treasured metal antique or automotive part. When applied, powder coating is more even, and less likely to drip than liquid coatings. Powder coating withstands cracking, fading, peeling, chipping and is chemical resistant.

It doesn’t need maintenance, regular upkeep or re-coating over time. While painting requires longer cure times and fume ventilation; powder can be applied quickly and easily electrostatically, then heated till cured. Once the item is cooled they are ready to be put into service immediately. Powders adhere precisely without waste, unlike paints, so there is no need for a lot of over spray.
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When a custom coater does a beautiful antique metal restoration job, it can renew the life of a priceless family treasure for a lifetime. The bottom line, it’s simply worth the money when it comes to things that hold intrinsic value or special memories of its owner. That being said, it’s important for consumers to keep in mind price variants. This is either due to location, cost of doing business and/or price increase from ongoing global supply chain disruptions. Thankfully finding a custom coater has never been easier before with the access of the internet at the clients fingertips.
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How to Find Metal Restoration Near Me?

With a simple search and click of a button consumers can effortlessly find powder coaters readily available. A great search directory to use is www.powdercoatingnearme.com.

powder coating near me, powder coating , powder coating directory — A list of qualified coaters will be brought up instantaneously.

Consumers can look up shops in their local area and gain buyer confidence with verified listings. They can view photos of a coater’s work and connect instantly with their social media accounts, view maps with shop location, hours and contact information.

Once on the site, simply scroll down to the map, where you can enter your town, city, state and/or zip code. A list of qualified coaters will be brought up instantaneously. Or maybe you’re looking for a powder coater that knows how to refurbish metal for a particular project like rims, brake calipers etc. Continue to scroll down on the main page where you can find custom coaters based on category.

For example, you need to find a coater that knows how to restore tools for metal restoration in agricultural, architectural or marine sectors. This growing database is easy to use and filled with verified custom coaters.

Key Takeaways

So there you have it, as a consumer reading this article, you should have a basic understanding of why powder coatings are important to refurbishing metal furniture, car rims or grandma’s favorite antique. In conclusion powder coating is durable, long lasting, safe and green for your wallet and the planet. It’s a growing market and not everyone is aware of the potential that custom coaters can offer no matter the size of the project.

Finding a custom coater in your local area has never been easier with www.powdercoatingnearme.com

Consumers will be surprised by the knowledge experienced custom coaters have in restoration of metal things. Always ask your powder coater questions, if you want to avoid problems with your custom coater Lastly, not everything can be restored well, understanding the restoration process of something old is complicated, and is key to spending your money wisely .

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About us

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us. As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.

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How to find the best powder coating near me?

December 7, 2020 by pcnearme

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Powder Coating Near Me

Find a powder coating shop near you.

Are you looking to powder coat your wheels or rims? What if you don’t have a powder coating job shop nearby?

Our comprehensive directory of the world’s best custom powder coaters helps consumers find the perfect powder coating for projects.

It’s called Powder Coating Near Me.

We started PowderCoatingNearMe.com because we realized Google doesn’t give you exactly what you need when searching for powder coating.

There are lots of powder coaters that may populate in your area BUT not all will do rims or automotive parts. Some are industrial only. Some are line coaters. Some just do part manufacturing. They can’t help you but their results don’t tell you.

That’s why we created the largest directory of the best coaters on the planet.

..and they all have a story to tell.

Did you know you can powder coat vape pens? I didn’t until I met Ashton Palmer of Palmers Powders. He’s in our directory & he’s located in Idaho.

There’s also Victor Pate from Black Label Coatings in Tennessee who started his own line of powders just for car rim customizing.

You won’t know what you’re missing until you find out that the best coaters may not be near you at all.

Click HERE to use the directory today.

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About us

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us. As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.

Interview with Martin Pageau of Greensolv

October 12, 2020 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Learn how Greensolv helps stay on the leading edge of green tech, reduce burns & yes contrary to what you’ve heard…save money!

In this episode, we introduce you to Martin Pageau, President of Greensolv a closed metal paint stripper system. It takes drive, determination & commitment to be at the forefront of bringing green to the restoration industry. This guest is out to change your mind.

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Interview with Martin Pageau of Greensolv

Greensolv Brochure

RossKote(Kim):Welcome to episode seven. I’m your host Kim Scott. You are listening to the powder coder podcast where we interview influencers in the industry and cover trending topics. So powder coaters can effectively learn and grow their business today. It’s all about saving time and restoration that starts with stripping. There are a few products out there that can do that today and we have one of them right now. I’d like to introduce Martin Pageau from Greensolv. Welcome to the show Martin.

Martin Pageau: Well, thank you Kim. Hi, everyone.

RossKote(Kim):How long have you been working for green solve?

Martin Pageau, President of Greensolv

Martin Pageau: Almost 20 years. We started the company in 2002. My father was the founder. I was there with him. So almost 20 years.

RossKote(Kim):And is that Daniel Peju has Joe

Martin Pageau: Yeah.

RossKote(Kim):sorry.

Martin Pageau: That’s correct. It was an entrepreneur all his life.

RossKote(Kim):and you guys are out of and you guys are out of Montreal East Coast.

Martin Pageau: Exactly Montreal and Canada were about six hours driving distance from New York City straight up north.

RossKote(Kim):Wow, okay. So what’s the story behind Green Salt I says on your website that it was a gel paint remover. You used it for a Japanese client. Can you give us a really brief story behind that?

Martin Pageau: Yes, this company is based out of Osaka in Japan. There’s still our customers 25 years down the road. They wanted the replacement the paint Cooper with no metal and chloride or dark little methane and we worked on that for a year or two and then we’ve been selling them a non. Well less toxic paint stripper for all these years.

RossKote(Kim):That’s awesome. So it says on your website that you or in your story your about page. It says that you offer a closed metal paint system stripper system. What exactly does a closed metal paint stripper system mean?

Martin Pageau: Well, that’s a long-term goal. I would like to have no contamination or no no evaporation in the atmosphere. We’d like to recycle the water that they use for wrenching parts. So we’d like to have a closed system, you know and be able to recuperate even the paint stripper itself. And so that that would be a zero contamination going out of the system. That is our objective long-term though because we’re almost there but not quite.

RossKote(Kim):Right, but hey, you’re in that direction and that’s so important which leads me to your core values because I really I really get and stand behind what you’re doing. It’s good for the planet. It’s good for people. But yeah, you know, we’ve got this problem. We want to save. Things that we like right, we want to restore them. We want to be able to bring them back to life and you know, we we’ve got to strike a balance and stuff like that. So what can you say about your core values? What out of all of them you have five listed here: protect the environment, be a valuable partner, promote Excellence always innovate, generate wealth for employees, customers and Community out of all of those which one is the most important to you.

Martin Pageau: Well, that’s a very difficult one. I think they’re all very important. We like to protect the environment. We like to be a good partner. Also, we like to help our customers strip more parts and be greener. We’d like to reduce our carbon footprint. Like I said and also create some wealth for for everybody for our employees but also for our customers for just about everyone so that’s that’s a real tough one, but protect

RossKote(Kim):Yeah.

Martin Pageau: the environment might be one of them

RossKote(Kim):I think so because when you when you choose that one, it’s like it all the

Martin Pageau: might be the most important.

RossKote(Kim):others kind of fall in line. You know, it just seems like That’s kind of where we’re all kind of headed. And you know, we do have chemicals out there for a reason because they do good jobs for us and when we need them to and so it’s important. It’s part of the basis of life, right?

Martin Pageau: Yeah.

RossKote(Kim):And so primarily I guess a lot of you know, because I’m speaking on behalf of the custom coaters. you know, our primary interest is stripping rims, car rims and stuff like that and Before we get into how long it takes to strip a wheel with your product and how much does it cost to do that? Before we do that you have that you are the world’s most efficient and profitable paint system stripping system. What does that mean? I mean like how does a small custom coder? I guess just kind of do that. I mean, how do we strike that balance between being efficient and profitable but yes stripping.

Martin Pageau: Yes, that is a ball claim. I have to admit but what we’re trying to do is actually to provide a very efficient product that is predictable and reliable. So you want to have always the same strip time, it might vary a little bit. But you know if it takes an hour or two hours to strip a rim, it’s it takes two hours now and in six months and in 12 months with the kind of the same solution, and also what we want to be doing is to reduce the cost for our customers. So if you can strip a rim for two dollars and you know, it’s reliable, you know, it’s going to be there so you can price accordingly to your customer and it makes you feel you know safe when you make sure your prices and also which your business because if you have a chemical that varies and you don’t know if it’s going to strip in one hour or 12 hours or 24 or not at all, then it could be a problem. You know, you promised something to your customers and you want to be good to that. You want to meet your requirements. So yeah, we try to have something reliable and predictable.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah, you know and I think I you know in our system here in our small shop, you know Ross only leads. he’s the only one that does this dripping whether we’re buying it off the shelf or ordering it or you know, like any kind of stripping that gets done is done by him the owner because we’re so worried about passing that, you know, allowing our employees to take that risk on our behalf for our customer and that is That I know we never felt really comfortable having our you know, so we always tasked them to do other things in the shop, but it’s a it’s taking a toll on my husband. In his health and well-being. So I think this is definitely a product that we would be you know that I would say most custom coaters. and their wives or girlfriends would probably want their husbands to want right, but, you know when looking into the cost of your product It can get kind of pricey at least on the onset. Do you want to talk about like How I know you have a cost calculator on your website, and I’ve used it. And it’s certainly is interesting to know how you know, you can see how it can reduce labor and increase productivity. But how does the cost? How do you how do you justify the cost? I guess because we looked into it for ourselves and it was really expensive.

Martin Pageau: Indeed the capital investment is pretty steep. If you want just a tank and the chemical you might be looking at $15,000 or something. But then the advantages are no labor. And once you have it, it’s really the lowest using cost you can ever get with one drum of chemical which is 55 gallons. We can strip 1,000 Wheels the equivalent with the nasty metal and chloride that burns your skin right on contact and also it’s very nasty and it’s banned by EPA for releasing in the air releasing in the water. So this product the competitor it’s 100 Wheels but 55 gallons. So you strip 10 times more with our chemicals that are three or four times less toxic than the other guys. Then you use 10 times less. So therefore the carbon footprint or the the toxicity to the environment is 10 times less plus also it’s the chemicals that we use are a lot greener. A lot of our customers once they they overcome that capital investment. You tell us that the tank is the employee of the month. You’re right because nobody wants to be stripping it’s too dangerous. You get one drop on your skin and you’re burnt for life. This is not the case with ours. It’s very safe and you got no everyone. Labor, it’s probably not the will 30 seconds to drop it in. Take it out and rinse it and there you go. There will strip. You don’t have any scratching no or no scrubbing. So that’s that’s all we can justify it because once you have it, it makes you make money because you can do 10 times more one small tank the $15,000 capital investment will strip for you up to four or five sets a day and you can even leave the wheels overnight. So therefore you save a lot of money and you can do more. You compare with the price of one employee per year. It’s a lot cheaper.
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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote(Kim):I think that’s a very very valid point when you’re talking about when you add in that employee. Into the equation I would say, you know, if you are at the if you’re a custom coder and you’re at that level of where you have like at least one two, maybe three employees and stuff to keep them busy. I mean that that can Make the difference in time and maybe replace. I don’t know. I don’t want to say replace an employee, but maybe scale you faster if you can, you know plan that out right in your in your strategic planning. I did see on the was watching the YouTube video that you have. And I like so when you put it in there, that’s kind of get more into the nuts and bolts of the system. So you put these you put rims in you’ve got them. Are they all happening to be the same size or can they be multiple sizes?

Martin Pageau: Or they can be multiple sizes. Obviously. If you have a four wheel tank, normally you’ll be your your strip four similar Wheels, but the tank that we that we sell they’re up to 26 inches and with so you can do up to 24 inches rims, but you can turn them around if you

RossKote(Kim):I see. Yeah.

Martin Pageau: if you see some 26 or 30 inch rims,

RossKote(Kim):and in that video on the YouTube

Martin Pageau: you can obviously turn them around

RossKote(Kim):video are these like painted rims

Martin Pageau: and do two at a time and it doesn’t happen most of the time. Yeah, so

RossKote(Kim):like or they it wasn’t it didn’t say in the video. So I’m just asking are these Already previously powder coated or are they paint painted rims?

Martin Pageau: All the rims and well, we’re very lucky. The video comes from wheeler finisher that we have here in Montreal. They do anywhere between 100 and 200 Wheels a day that this trip they have three strip tanks and it’s all OEM Coatings. It’s very rare that they have a wheel that was powder coated. So it’s always the original finish from the the manufacturer and yeah, they take between 90 minutes per batch this trip and they do usually 16 wheels at a time. They want to do 150 Wheels. That’s they need to be very productive and the Coster will is

RossKote(Kim):right

Martin Pageau: very low it’s about two and a half three bucks. And when you think about it three dollars is about what seven minutes labor and how long does it take if you strip a wheel by hand probably 15-20 minutes and you’re probably used to 20 dollars of paint stripper.

RossKote(Kim):Right exact. Hope more than that sometimes so yeah, that’s I guess that’s kind of maybe where? Most of the custom coaters are could be either dealing with a previously powder coated Rim how well does that does your product work on the on a powder coated Rim? Not necessarily a painted Rim. Do you know?

Martin Pageau: Oh, yes part according is probably one of the easiest according to be removed. It takes 60 minutes 40 minutes that the strip about recorded around what it could take if you have a BMW with the original finish, it’s usually three codes the base code. Well, you get the primer the base don’t and the clear on top those can take up to 90 minutes the strip so usually yeah part of coding and then when we have coupons that we do our test on in the lab particulating is usually the easiest so it strips Eco product coding any type of liquid paint would they be polyurethane epoxies? just about every cool thing that we

RossKote(Kim):Yeah.

Martin Pageau: know of and even the PVD the new one that they put on the OEM wheels such as the F-150 that takes longer.

RossKote(Kim):Wow.

Martin Pageau: It’s probably like three four hours,

RossKote(Kim):Yeah, okay.

Martin Pageau: right?

RossKote(Kim):Yeah. Okay, because I know you couldn’t do

Martin Pageau: But it’s strips. Well you leave them overnight.

RossKote(Kim):that with like a traditional chemical stripper. I mean you get you know, I don’t know if you you did

Martin Pageau: right

RossKote(Kim):that overnight. You would probably wake up to and open up the thing and there wouldn’t be anything in there. I’d be gone.

Martin Pageau: the Yes indeed. The will would disappear.

RossKote(Kim):right All right. Well, so let’s talk about your customer. Let’s kind of backtrack a little bit and go into who is your ideal customer. I know your advertising to like the Aerospace industry and stuff like that. But before we started the podcast you were talking about, you know your custom coder Market. Can you describe who that is? Who is your customer? How big are they? What kind of guys are calling you for this product?

Martin Pageau: Our our customers mainly 90% or 95% of our customers right now are either custom quarters or a little bit finishers and the size of the business will vary we have a lot of guys that are it’s a one-man show and some the biggest shops that we sell to are probably 30 40 employees. So it’s usually a small business and they’re located probably 60% of our businesses in America in 42 States even in Hawaii actually and we got Canada, maybe 40% or 35% you sell a bit to Japan and France and England so but yeah, normally it’s the custom quarters that they want to strip and repaint wheels or valve covers or brake pads or bicycle motorcycle frames the usual stuff or even garden chairs. people chairs but all metal Parts, obviously, so this trip the good custom quarters this trip and then the sand blasts for five minutes with a brush blast just to give it a nice profile and after that the particle so and it helps them so much because this is reliable when you get some Wheels coming in you just throw them in the tank and there’s trip within a

RossKote(Kim):right, so

Martin Pageau: couple hours so you can start working

RossKote(Kim):So do you offer some kind of?

Martin Pageau: on them and there’s no labor again.

RossKote(Kim):Financing or how does you know like do we have to come up with our own financing for this or how do you usually set up your clients when they’re ready to purchase?

Martin Pageau: I would try to help our customers anywhere we can and this is one of their methods that we got is the payment plan. The most popular one is probably the eight month payment plan. So we ask for 20% down 20% before we ship which is five or six weeks later because we offer three things we offer the chemicals: the Stripping System including the tank the rinse table, the whole system and also the third thing that we offer is a technical service. So we go see our customers every three or four months the grab a sample and analyze it so you always maintain good efficiency and you never dump your stripper. But to get back to the payment plan. Yeah, we got an eight month payment plan over say 20% 20% and six months of 10% or we get also what we call the paper wheel. It’s over 36 months. So you get a flat fee that includes all the chemicals for the three years and includes also the system and then you hone it after 36 months.

RossKote(Kim):And so do you fly out to Hawaii and test my system?

Martin Pageau: I’d love to actually never been to Hawaii. I loved it.

RossKote(Kim):Allowing me fun. I think we could maybe go on an adventure when we come to Hawaii, too. You might have to take some extra time to test all those chemicals when you’re here.

Martin Pageau: Yes, we actually fly quite a bit to Japan once a year, so it would be on the way.

RossKote(Kim):Oh you do? Okay. Yeah, okay. So let me look back on some of the questions. I sent it out to our Group Forum here on Facebook and one guy asked could you make the tank longer? I guess the tank he has is 44 inches and is six inches too short.

Martin Pageau: hmm

RossKote(Kim):For a full set of four-wheel tank. Do you know what he’s talking about there?

Martin Pageau: Yes. Yes, we’ve been making thanks for maybe five six years. And at first the tanks were 44 inches long by 24 inches wide and had years going by will be getting bigger and bigger every year. So we had twice we had extended the tank the four wheel thing I’m talking about. So now it’s 48 by 26. So yes indeed. We make him bigger. We also have the six wheel take which is 72 inches long and that is very good. If you want to do a bumper or motorcycle frame or any kind of long parts, that’s especially good for product quarters or custom quarters.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah, it sounds like it because you know, we have such a variety of parts and pieces and stuff. It seemed like that would be the one to get. And the other guy asked this is he was wanting to know could you make them more affordable? He was a bit shocked because the pricing when he asked was in Canadian dollars, I guess. So is there a plan to make this more aside from your payment program? Is there an opportunity for you guys to make them? Cheaper in the end or your to lower your cost so you can pass it on to the customer.

Martin Pageau: We’re trying to and that’s where we’ve been doing for the last year’s but also we have a nice control box. The tanks are UL certified which means it’s up to the electrical code of America and also Canada and now Europe those things are a bit costly and most tanks when we can start looking at them on the web. They’re pretty often that are competitors are like two or three times the price sometimes we try to and that’s all we Mass Market them or we Mass produce them up to maybe 50 60 tanks a year. So I think the price is already pretty good. I know it looks pretty expensive. But there’s a lot of Technology. They’re very well insulated. They get a nice counterweight. They’re like workhorses.

RossKote(Kim):right, and I think like he said

Martin Pageau: so

RossKote(Kim):you’re saving money because you know, it’s that employee exchange, right, you know, so either you you can put your money into this machine that can replace your employee who would be in charge of stripping or you yeah,

Martin Pageau: exactly

RossKote(Kim):exactly. So that makes sense to me. So if someone had an older tank and wanted to upgrade to the larger tanks, is that possible or would they have to be like buying the whole system all over again?

Martin Pageau: We’re trying to get a very great exchange system for that. Normally we give the face value of the thing that was even if it was paid like through two three four years ago. We like to exchange tanks because they’re better built. Now we keep on, you know, making them stronger and better and also wider and longer. So yeah, we kind of try to give our customers face value what they paid a factory years ago against the new tank. So the new tank might be a bit more expensive but still it’s pretty good and also that’s the same thing. We do say something and we like to see our customers grow. So we sell them a four wheel tank and eventually two or three years later. They want a six wheel tank or an eight wheel tank and then we can trade it against the old tank face value again.

RossKote(Kim):You know, this is such valuable information and I know you can only put so much on a website. I mean, I really like your website. It’s very clean. It’s very simple. It’s very easy to read and it gets to the point. But I’m so glad that I’m having you on the show because it’s answering a lot of these details that may be inhibiting some powder coaters to reach out to you to get more information. You know what I mean? And it’s been good having you answered some of these ahead of time to kind of peak the interest of custom coaters that you know could be on the fence of you know, maybe buying a trying to decide what to buy if they’re gonna go with a traditional chemicals stripper system or yours. So okay. I want to ask you another question I wanted to ask you and that is I can’t find my notes. Let’s talk about the processor, the chemical process right in itself. How does it work? Could you just I’d like to know more about how it works because I know it’s heated and in and it’s got so bad. How does it start as a chemical and then it’s safe when it comes out you can Not burn yourself.

Martin Pageau: Well, we use the way that we came up with that chemistry. Is that normally the cold paint stripper? That’s what we call it. That’s the dichloromethane. That’s the one that burns your skin right on contact and pretty much every paint stripper available out there or most of them although they’re getting banned slowly. They have this molecule, the bacterial methane. This is called so you can use it at a real temperature. So in order there’s no chemical that is as good in terms of paint stripping. So the only way we could do that is by heating the solution to 80 or to 18. I Tour 80 Celsius and that’s how every 10 degrees or every 20 degrees you double the efficiency. So it’s exponential. It’s two four eight 16. And that’s how we can come up with a very efficient solution that is more efficient now than that lower methane, but we’re comparing it 180 versus room temperature. So that’s the first part now the chemistry itself we can rejuvenate it and that’s why we go to see our customers. We try to go see them at least three times a year depending where they’re located but to grab a sample bring it back to the lab and then we can analyze it and we tell our customers. Okay, you can fix your chemistry this way and we have 200 chemicals that are additive and that can bring the efficiency back to 90% So that’s all that’s why we’re saying that the chemistry is very very reliable and predictable in terms of stripping time. The third thing is that we need to clean. Of course the chemical will get saturated with paint because the paint doesn’t go anywhere it stays in the tank So eventually it’s too dense and that’s one of the tests that we can tell our customers when it’s time to clean. But normally if you do say 20 Wheels a day for a four wheel tank you like to clean every month and a half it takes about two hours. What you do is you let your tank cool down, you let the paint settle at the bottom you pump out the chemical and then there 15 or 20 gallons that you have at the bottom of paint. It’s a very fine particle. It’s like clay. It’s a microscopic particle, but because if they the paint is really disintegrated and that’s why it trips too well because it goes into the nukes and crannies and even the places where it’s engraver and boss it’s trips welding those in those Corners. So you remove the liquid and then you shovel out the sludge and you put the liquid back in and you top off the new material. So if you remove 15 gallons of sludge, you have 15 gallons of new paint stripper. So, otherwise you never dumped your chemicals you always reusing.

RossKote(Kim):Right, you’re just adding to it. And so you pretty much leave it to the coder to manage it himself date on a monthly level and they’re just adding and taking out sludge and then in between that you’ll come out or you’ll test the sample for them and then tell them what they need to add in or how much to add in.

Martin Pageau: Exactly.

RossKote(Kim):Okay.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Martin Pageau: That’s like a blood test. It tells you how much you’ve been taking care of your solution.

RossKote(Kim):right, so you

Martin Pageau: And there’s some good and some some good systems and some that are not as good. Let’s put it this way.

RossKote(Kim):right. I mean it’s it’s so I guess if you’re gonna buy your system, you have to be committed to maintaining it. Otherwise, it may not strip as well as you need it to.

Martin Pageau: hmm Indeed. That’s a key cleaning. Your solution is probably one of the most important things. It keeps the efficiency High just removing. This sludge is if you think about having 20% paint and you’re stripping the solution all you probably lose 20% efficiency because it takes the space of good good chemicals. So that’s why you need to remove that paint.

RossKote(Kim):so if you have this system and then

Martin Pageau: That’s a standard paint and the chemical once in a while.

RossKote(Kim):you know say you’ve done X number of Wheels over the month. Will it start to not strip as well? Is that how you know

Martin Pageau: Well, if you buy a four-wheel tank again the example, then you do four sets a day after three months. Probably you’ll see some some the efficiency go down quite a bit slowly

RossKote(Kim):right

Martin Pageau: slowly, but gradually what you want to do is after two months and three months again, you settle down the paint by turning up the tank for 48 hours and then you shovel this ledge out empty the tank. And as soon as you put some new chemical and you remove the sludge the efficiency will shoot right back to 90% of its original oil was when you got it.

RossKote(Kim):Okay. So one of the metals that is limited with the substrates that you can put into the Into this system. I mean I would imagine alloy is okay aluminum. D what if you have something that’s like really rusty or

Martin Pageau: Well, unlike the dichloromethane or the cold strippers you can put a lot more. The metals and you can use you can strip magnesium. You can strip. So the fancy wheels from Ferrari or even I think Harley-Davidson, that’s some magnesium Wheels. I get the question at least probably once a month. Can I put my magnesium Wheels in there? Yes, they’re very expensive first. So you don’t want to scrap them and you can put stainless steel cast iron any type of aluminum magnesium titanium, even some plastic a little bit. It’s to hit the Miss with plastics.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah.

Martin Pageau: It’s plastic is like paint.

RossKote(Kim):Right. It probably would depend on its chemical composition.

Martin Pageau: Yes, exactly.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah.

Martin Pageau: But I get a lot of customers that shook their plugs into in the solution.

RossKote(Kim):Okay, okay.

Martin Pageau: and the hooks

RossKote(Kim):Um well Yeah, there’s never ending there. But a lot of the same, I mean in terms of Maintenance, it’s a lot of the same stuff that the traditional chemical stripper tanks, you know, you still have to you still have to you don’t necessarily have to drain it. But you do have to take out that sludge or it will not be as it fills up and you have to you know, you do have some maintenance there with that tank system.

Martin Pageau: yes.

RossKote(Kim):So pretty similar in terms of that. Wow. This has been so enlightening. I guess such an enlightening. I learned so much more than I thought I ever would with this interview. I mean I kind of know about the regular I can never say this word methane or whatever system. That’s what I’ve mostly utilized or been around. But I’ve I really am a kind of intrigue Now by your product and I hope our listeners are too because I’m gonna put all the links in this interview like your YouTube video a link to your website and stuff because I think people need to start maybe looking into that because let’s face it. The world is trying to well, they’re regulated. It’s becoming more regulated in terms of nasty chemical usage. You’re trying the industry’s trying to go more green. What is the future of your product? I mean, what’s the what’s the what do you see happening in the future in terms of chemical stripping?

Martin Pageau: would like to do again is close that Loop so Reduce our carbon footprint carbon footprinting means the damage we do or to the environment or the what we leave behind, you know, whatever it is rents water or solvents going into the atmosphere. So with we’d like to do is capture everything again and make it more efficient and more and by one of our our current purpose actually is achieving more with less and that’s what we want to do is do more help you strip more for less less pollution less money. And then reduce the cost of stripping we already take it down from dichloromethane. We evaluated. It’s probably $4 per wheel of chemicals with the cold strippers with ours. It’s probably $2 a wheel or maybe 250 sometimes but so yeah, that’s what we want to achieve. It’s just more efficient greener. So that’s what we try to push and we do a lot of R&D. I was in the lab this morning trying to get the new version which is even Greener. We call it the California friendly formulation. So that’s one step further than or the actual paint stripper that we get now and it’s being tested for the last two or three years already.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah, and I think that that research and development part is key because you’re pushing the industry forward with your company. Whereas some of the more traditional older companies that are just selling chemicals. I mean, it seems like their days are going to be numbered. Maybe I don’t know, you know it just with regulation coming down and green earth EPA standards changing all the time getting more strict either by state or by nation. And I think that I think that you guys are definitely on to the Future and that’s something that all coaters. Need to understand in terms of moving and pushing their business forward, you know, despite Maybe. We’re you know, some of the logistics that are happening in supplies and materials for their business. right now with changes in getting products and materials and pigments here to America. It’s nice to know that there is a guy in Canada that’s providing this kind of a system to keep our businesses running. And now you do have a blog post on there that said that you are making things in America now, is that what’s up with that?

Martin Pageau: Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, we try to be a valuable partner. We’ll try to reduce the carbon footprint and that means also reducing the freight. I mean the distance that our drums are going so if we ship from Montreal Canada to California, that’s a long way to ship one drum. So yes, we started blending. It’s a tall blender out of Pennsylvania near Philadelphia and that’s been since March. So every all of our us cells now are made in America by a Pennsylvania company and they’re shipping straight from there to all of the US eventually maybe would like to have a hub also on the west coast maybe in Texas, you know, so in order to reduce or the footprints so less gas that’s being used and we’re trying to one thing that we like to do as a team here is to look at all the regulations from Be for water for air and try to respect them and also be one step ahead in the development that we do just to make sure that our customers are. You know, they’re well served. They can. They can ask us any questions about the regulations. We know them all and if we don’t we’ll look we’ll look them up to make sure that they comply.

RossKote(Kim):Well, I think that leads back to your core values about how you’re standing to help your customers and move the industry forward. And I and I it sounds like what you’re saying is what you’re doing, which I like.

Martin Pageau: You know, we’re trying as hard as we can.

RossKote(Kim):Yeah.

Martin Pageau: because one thing is if our customers are happy, we’re happy and if they’re

RossKote(Kim):right

Martin Pageau: not then we’ll work hard to make a match.

RossKote(Kim):Well, I mean everybody could use that

Martin Pageau: is that

RossKote(Kim):on their side, right? I mean, we’re just there’s a lot of small businesses out there that need the help of others to move them forward or grow their business.

Martin Pageau: yes, and if we can there’s nothing more pleasant than seeing an entrepreneur that starts a company and then I get one guy, our first customer in America from Maine Portland. He started in his in-laws garage and he was by himself with one employee and now they’re 12 employees five six years later the can’t be happier and we sold them the first tank. We changed it against a bigger tank and he’s doing more and more Wheels now, he’s up to 60 Wheels a day three vans. So it’s very happy to see our customers succeeding and if we can help them. even better

RossKote(Kim):Oh, that’s awesome. I think that’s a great way to end. I mean, it’s nice to know that you know, you’ve got our back if we’re gonna purchase a product from you. That you’re gonna be there along the way to help us maintain it and keep it running so that we can keep our businesses running. So let’s what’s your where can you be found? Why don’t you tell us your website? So the listeners who don’t have the video can be can know where to go on the web. And then also what’s your social media handles and stuff email phone?

Martin Pageau: Okay, my well our website is greensolv.com. And we get a platform on Instagram very popular. It’s green solved on this core link and we get we’re also on Facebook under my name Martin Pageau on LinkedIn as well and finally My email is mailto:mp8geau@greentsolv.com You can write to me anytime. I answer everybody and make a point to that.

RossKote(Kim):And it’s greensolv with no e on the end s-o-l-v.

Martin Pageau: Yeah, yes V like Victor. You’re right with no E at the end. So green solving or that’s what we’re trying to do.

RossKote(Kim):Right, right. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us on the program today. I appreciate it, and I hope I hope you have. I hope you may get some calls. You’ve certainly enlightened me again, and I’m gonna tell my husband all about this system. So, thank you.

Martin Pageau: Thank you man, Scott for having me today. It was a real pleasure to talk to you.

RossKote(Kim):All right. Thanks Martin. That was great.

Martin Pageau: All right. Have a great day. Aloha.
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