As our team of trained technicians and sales representative talks with metal finishing shops we notice many needs for chemicals which are not “plating” chemistries. These may include uses for general purpose floor cleaners, rust inhibitors or anti-splatter for welding. Clients are often surprised to learn we offer many good and effective chemicals for these applications.
But these products don’t just appear in your shop without planning.
How do you find the right product for your business? Well you could just type it into the computer and hope a search engine takes you to the correct product, or you could ask us!
Asterion Products
Here are some examples of other products we carry:
Rust inhibitors come in a few varieties, most notably amine based and oil based. For our purposes we’ll just discuss amine based rust inhibitor. There are a few options when it comes to amine based rust inhibitors, but my initial recommendation is always RP-27. It is a low foaming, water soluble rust inhibitor for ferrous substrates that can be cleaned off with water or a mild alkaline cleaner.
I recommend RP-27 be run anywhere from ambient temperature to 150 F and at a concentration of 4-10%. Any lower than 4% concentration risks lowering the rust protection and may cause early rusting of the part. It is also important that the rust inhibitor is the final thing put on the bare part, as any final rinse or washing will remove the protective film, leaving the surface vulnerable to rust. RP-27 is great when used to store parts for a week or two prior to finishing, should you need the time.
Anti-splatter for welding is one of the best kept secrets in my experience. This material allows you to weld without worry of leaving behind a hard-to-cover splatter mark from the molten metal or bits of the electrode that did not fuse with the weld pool. WC 40 is an example of anti-splatter that is ready to use straight out of the barrel. Simply spray down the area you do not want any molten metal to stick to, weld, and then wipe down the sprayed area. This should remove all of the splatter from the area, leaving you with a nice, clean weld which is easy to finish. It is important to ensure that you do not allow too much of the WC 40 to cover the weld joint prior to welding as this can cause porosity. Porosity is small welding defects which weaken the weld.
Filter material is just about as simple as it sounds: material used in filters. With such a simple name, all the material must be the same right? Not quite. When operating a filter, it is important to get the most surface area possible from the filter material as the more surface area that we have, the better job the filter will do. This is why we typically use activated powdered carbon when we are repacking our filters.
Interestingly, there is a product that gives us a better performance when it comes to filtering, due largely to its greater surface area in relation to powdered carbon. This product is called Benchsorb 100. Using a blend a material, Benchsorb 100 allows for greater filtration of liquids, which will extend the life of plating baths. Using Benchsorb 100 is as simple as using powdered carbon, which means there is no change in equipment required to extend the life of your bath.
Regardless of how you finish metal or what manufacturing process you run, we typically will offer a solution or a product that can make your life easier. If you have an issue feel free to contact us and see if we can help you find the chemical solution to your problem.