Working is not the same as right
Cortec’s tip of the month in August was aimed at its own customers, and it is blunt: if you use VCI packaging or rust preventative chemicals, have your process evaluated even if it is working 100 percent, because there are newer materials that cost less, perform better or fit a sustainability target that the ones you chose five years ago do not.
We see the same thing from the distributor side, and usually the program is not working 100 percent. It is working well enough that nobody has looked at it since the person who set it up left. This post is what we look at when we do, and an offer to come and do it.
The five things that are usually wrong
1. Parts are oiled when they could be bagged
Rust preventative oil is applied at your plant and washed off at your customer’s. That is two chemical steps, a dip tank, a wash tank, a dryer and two waste streams to protect a part in a box for two weeks. A VpCI-126 bag or a VpCI-146 paper wrap replaces the oil, and the customer takes the part out of the bag and uses it. Cortec published the energy and waste case for this in September, and it is the change with the biggest payback in most programs.
2. The bag is the wrong size, or the box has no emitter
VpCI film protects by saturating the air inside the package. A small part in an oversized bag, or a carton of loose parts with a liner and no emitter, is under-dosed. The fix is usually a different stock size and a BioPad, not a different film.
3. The cleaning step is the weak link
Parts going into VCI packaging should be clean and dry. If the wash tank is running on tired detergent, the rinse is dirty or the parts are packed damp, the packaging gets blamed for a cleaning problem. We check the washer, the detergent concentration and the dry-off. Often the answer is a detergent with a built-in corrosion inhibitor, such as the VpCI-416 family, so the part leaves the washer already protected against flash rust. Sometimes the answer is that the washer is undersized for the volume and a conveyor washer would pay for itself in labor.
4. Nobody is protecting the control panels
Cortec published a piece this summer on pool automation panels, where humidity and chlorine corrode breakers, boards and terminals inside the enclosure. Swap chlorine for the coolant mist, wash-line steam or plating fumes in a manufacturing plant and the problem is identical. A self-adhesive VpCI emitter inside the panel, sized to the enclosure volume (1, 5 or 11 cubic feet per device) and replaced every six to twelve months, is the cheapest maintenance item in the building, and almost nobody does it until a drive fails.
5. The rust preventative is a solvent-based product from a different decade
Many plants are still spraying a solvent-borne RP because it was what the supplier had. Cortec’s water-based and biobased temporary coatings and the EcoAir aerosol line give the same protection window with lower VOCs and no solvent handling, and for parts that are bagged, none at all. If your plant has a paint booth or a blast room, the same review covers the flash-rust window between blasting and priming.
What the review looks like
One visit, an hour or two on the floor. We look at the wash line and its detergent, how parts are dried, how they are packaged and in what, where the finished goods sit and for how long, what RP chemicals are in use, and the inside of a few control panels. You get a one-page write-up: what is working, what to change, and a per-part cost comparison of the current program against the recommended one. Where a Cortec regional manager should be involved for a technical question, we bring them.
There is no charge. We sell the parts washers, the detergents, the VCI packaging, the rust preventatives and the emitters, so the review pays for itself if it leads to an order, and it costs us an afternoon if it does not.
Which products come up most often
- VpCI-126 Blue bags and VpCI-146 paper to replace RP oil
- BioPad emitters for cartons and crates
- VpCI-101, VpCI-105 and VpCI-111 panel emitters, sized to the enclosure (1, 5 and 11 cubic feet)
- Build-All and Magido aqueous parts washers and inhibited detergents
- EcoAir VpCI-422 rust remover and the EcoAir aerosol RP line
- Blast rooms where the review covers the blast-to-prime window
The VpCI product selection guide and concentration testing pages cover the technical side.
Book a review
We cover Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and eastern Iowa in person and the rest of the country by photos and a phone call. Contact us with your plant location and what you make.
Source: Cortec Corporation published tip and product data.
