SolventRS Metal Tech Blog
When Did Anyone Last Look at Your Rust Prevention Program? (A Free Review for Midwest Plants)
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...
Stop HMI Control Panel Corrosion: ElectriCorr 239 and VpCI-111
The control panel on a lift station, a wastewater pump house, a wet-process line or a plant next to a rendering operation does not fail all at once. The HMI touch screen starts dropping inputs, a relay sticks, a terminal strip goes green, and one day the pump does not...
How to Apply Cortec® Boiler Lizard®: The Two-Minute Dry Layup Procedure (Video)
Cortec’s new demo video shows the whole Boiler Lizard dry layup procedure in under two minutes. Here are the steps, the dosage, and when dry layup is the wrong call.
De-Rust a Gearbox Without Disassembly: VpCI-422, 414 and M-531
Pull the inspection cover on a gearbox that has sat idle through a wet season and you can see it: a rust bloom on the gear faces above the oil line, orange streaks down the case walls, a film on the bearing housings. The gearbox is not worn out. Nothing needs...
Pink Poly vs Permanent ESD Bags: What the Surface Resistance Test Showed
Five bags off the internet, one pass Pink poly is the default answer for shipping anything with a circuit board in it. It is cheap, it is pink, and it says antistatic on the box. Cortec's film plant ordered five pink poly antistatic bags from online sellers and ran...
Industrial Sandblasting Robots: How Enclosed Robotic Blasting Cells Work
How enclosed robotic sandblasting cells hold a surface profile spec across a whole run, when they beat a turntable, and what to send us to spec one.
Spray Gun Washer Buyer’s Guide: Solvent vs. Water-Based, Manual vs. Automatic
Compare solvent and water-based spray gun washers, manual and automatic models, and see how recycling your gunwash pays for the machine.
How an Automaker Packed 30,000 Engines for Two Years in VCI Bags
A build-ahead is the packaging engineer's worst assignment. The plant is going to build months or years of product in advance, put it in a warehouse nobody is going to heat or dehumidify, and expect every unit to roll onto the assembly line later without a rust spot....
Ten More Years Out of Rusting Rooftop Units: A Rust Converter Primer System for Galvanized Steel You Cannot Blast
A rust converter primer, wash primer and 2K waterborne epoxy extended 100+ corroded rooftop air units by about 10 years. How the system works.
Nitrite-Free and Lab-Tested: What VIA Testing Tells You About a VCI Pouch
NACE TM0208 VIA testing compared three VCI pouches. Only the nitrite-free VpCI-308 passed. Here is what the test measures and how to spec it.
VpCI-337 Fogging Dose for Boiler Layup: 1 oz/ft³ vs Nitrogen
The boiler comes off line Friday and stays off for eight months, or three years, or until the market turns, and the maintenance engineer has to keep the tube banks, headers and downstream piping from rusting in the meantime. The usual answers are dry layup with...
Desiccant Alone Is Not a Rust Plan: Sizing Desicorr VpCI Pouches for Humid Shipments
What actually rusts a part in transit A part does not rust because the air is humid. It rusts because water condenses on it. A carton loaded in a warm plant at the end of a summer day, put in a trailer that cools overnight and then sits on a dock in the morning sun...
How to Prep and Pack Metal Parts for Rust-Free Shipment (Video, Step by Step)
Watch the process first Cortec put out a one-minute demonstration of the packaging routine we recommend to every shop that ships machined, stamped or remanufactured metal parts. It is short enough to show a packer on the floor, and it covers the three things that...
Clean, Protect, Ship Same Day: VpCI-422 and VpCI-415 De-Rust Line
Every spare-parts crib has a shelf of steel that has been there longer than anyone can remember. When a customer finally needs one of those parts, it comes down covered in surface rust, and the order that should have shipped this afternoon goes to the blast room or...
Surviving Midwest Rust Season: VpCI-146 Paper and VpCI-126 Bags
Every plant between Ohio and Iowa knows the calendar. Sometime in June the dew point climbs, the doors are open, the parts washer is running hot, and machined steel that sat clean on the rack all winter starts showing orange spots overnight. Maintenance calls it...
Parts Washer Cleaner Concentration: VpCI-414 at 0.5% Beat 5%
Most parts-washer sumps are run by habit. The cleaner concentrate goes in at whatever percentage the last drum label said, the heater is set where it was when the machine arrived, and the bath gets dumped when the parts start coming out oily or the operator cannot...
VCI Shrink Film: How to Choose It, and How to Tell You Got the Real Thing
Anything metal that sits outside — a skid of machined castings waiting on a truck, a gearbox in a laydown yard, a vehicle staged for ocean transit — is fighting two problems at once. Water and dirt have to be kept off it, and the moisture already trapped...
Aqueous vs. Solvent Parts Washers: When Each One Wins
Aqueous is not automatically the upgrade. Compare soil types, cleaning power, real operating cost, and compliance to pick the right parts washer for your shop.
Wet Lay-Up vs. Dry Lay-Up: How to Protect an Idle Boiler
An idle boiler corrodes faster than a running one. Compare wet and dry lay-up, when each applies, and where VpCI products fit into a seasonal shutdown.
How Long Does VCI Rust Protection Actually Last?
VCI film, paper, and emitters are rated for up to two years, but enclosure, ratio, and seal integrity decide the real number. Here is how to size it right.
What Does It Actually Cost to Dispose of Solvent vs. Recycle It?
Used solvent costs more than the hauling invoice shows. Here are the four real costs of disposal, and the math on when on-site recycling pays for itself.
Pneumatic vs. Mechanical vs. Hybrid: Choosing a Blast Room Media Recovery System
Every blast room lives or dies by one question: how does the abrasive get back to the pot? The recovery system is the single biggest driver of a blast room's cost, its floor construction, and how many productive blasting hours you get per shift. Here's how the main...
Blast Room Buyer’s Guide: Sizing, Media Recovery, Dust Collection, and What Drives the Cost
If you're pricing out your first blast room, you've probably discovered that nobody publishes a price list. That's not a sales trick — a blast room is an engineered system, and two rooms with the same footprint can differ in cost by six figures depending on what's...
Parts Washer Preventative Maintenance Guide: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Checklist
A practical maintenance schedule for rotary drum parts washers like Magido Spira machines — daily, weekly, biweekly, and quarterly tasks to keep wash quality high and avoid costly downtime.
Manual vs. Automatic Spray Gun Washers: Which One Fits Your Paint Shop?
Every paint shop cleans spray guns; the question is whether it happens in a bucket of dirty thinner or in a station built for the job. Bucket washing wastes solvent, exposes painters to fumes and splash, and still leaves guns half-clean. A purpose-built spray gun...
