It was roughly five years ago when JR Custom Metal Products (JRCMP) Inc. in Wichita, Kan., had been outsourcing so many parts for finishing that the company decided it made sense to put together a finishing system of its own. According to Jorge Martinez, vice president of sales and marketing at JRCMP, “Once we made the decision to build a powder coating finishing line, we wanted to do it right.” So, they started to attend industry events such as the Powder Coating Show (now called the Powder Coating Technical Conference and Tabletop Exhibition), PCI Hands-On Workshops and FABTECH. “We needed to learn a lot,” says Martinez. “We took everything to heart. We listened to all the speakers at all the events we attended. We learned about grounding, transfer efficiencies and line density. We learned about everything in general that we could about powder coating, and from there we figured out what kind of budget we would need to put in a new, ultimate system.”

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Since its founding in 1948, American Trim (known then as Lima Tool and Die) has achieved success by adding value to the parts it supplies to the appliance industry. The company’s first customer, a kitchen range manufacturer, fell in love with the stylish, chrome-plated handle that company owner Henry Hawk designed. With the help of the Tennessee Stove Works, Hawk expanded his company’s reach into the appliance industry by developing the capability to manufacture and then plate appliance parts using an efficient, continuous, process.

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From March 27-31, The Powder Coating Institute (PCI) hosted three events at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis, making the end of March a hat trick for the powder coating industry. PCI devoted an entire week to powder coating education, hands-on training, tabletop exhibits and networking opportunities, through three of its events: a Powder Coating 101 Workshop, the Powder Coating 2017 Technical Conference & Tabletop Exhibition, and the Custom Coater Forum.

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This edition of Technology Interchange will take you on a journey, exploring how our industry began and the path it took to the present day. Powder coating technology was conceived as a laboratory curiosity and blossomed a few decades later as a multi-billion dollar global industry. Many folks think powder is the latest and greatest industrial coating technology; however, its origin dates back to 1953 when a clever German scientist developed a means to apply an organic coating to a metal part without the use of a solvent carrier.

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When the Flory family built a barn in Salida, Calif., in 1909, to raise dairy cows, one might wonder if anybody knew that more than a century later the same family would be running a successful metal fabrication and OEM farm equipment business from the very same location. Read on for the Flory story.

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In the world of oven design, there’s engineering, there’s experience, and sometimes there is even a little art. When you add the challenge of working with heat-sensitive substrates, it becomes exponentially more difficult. When finishing a heat-sensitive substrate, all types of heat technologies must be considered. Powder coating for these applications requires an investment in process design to ensure a good outcome, and the answer is seldom based on an engineering chart. For the best outcome, the business as well as operational needs need to be considered.

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While CARC powder coatings have been approved for some time, until now powder has made up only a tiny fraction of overall CARC use. In many cases, powder coatings have frequently served only as a primer for CARC liquid top coats. The project talked about here really changes the game. Instead of being a specialty item, CARC powder is now an off-the-shelf product.

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The Powder Coating Institute (PCI) will host its POWDER COATING 2017 Technical Conference from March 27-31, at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Long known as the event where the industry gathers to discuss all things powder coating, PCI is devoting an entire week to powder coating education, hands-on training, tabletop exhibits and networking with industry peers.

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The 2016 Powder Coating Summit provided a cornucopia of advancements in powder coating technology. Topics ranged from twocoat systems to smart in-line powder application to fluoropolymer chemistry. Allow me to give you a synopsis of some of the topics presented.

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