SolventRS Metal Tech Blog
Rust Preventatives on Threaded Fasteners: Protecting Bolted Joints Without Losing Clamp Load
Most shops think about rust on a bolted assembly the same way they think about rust on anything else: pick a rust preventative, spray it, ship it. On a structural joint that reasoning can quietly cause a failure, because the thing that holds a bolted joint together is...
How to Sandblast a Trailer: Setting Up a Drive-Through Blast Room
Flatbeds, dump trailers, tankers and truck bodies are the most common “too big for a cabinet” job we see. Here’s how a drive-through blast room handles them, from doors to floor recovery.
Laying Up a Small Boiler: How to Fog 100 Gallons with VpCI® Gecko™ (Video)
Most of what gets written about boiler layup assumes a big boiler. Thousands of gallons, a maintenance crew, a planned outage with a work order behind it. That is not the boiler that rusts in most Midwest plants. The one that rusts is the small package boiler in the...
Shipping Oversized Equipment on Deck: A Three-Layer Corrosion Plan for Breakbulk and Flat-Rack Freight
When a machine fits in a container, corrosion protection is a packaging problem. When it does not, it becomes a weather problem. Out-of-gauge cargo — oversized weldments, structural steel, wind turbine components, large skids and frames — goes breakbulk on...
Robotic Blasting: When to Put a Robot in the Blast Room (and When a Turntable Is Enough)
Robotic blasting is the right answer for a specific set of parts and specs. Here’s how to tell whether your job needs a robot, a fixed-nozzle machine, or just better part handling, and how Kresco builds each one.
How to Blast Large Steel Parts That Won’t Fit in a Blast Cabinet
Weldments, frames, tanks and fabrications measured in feet need a walk-in blast room, not a bigger cabinet. Here’s how to size one, choose the media recovery floor, and keep operators safe.
Blast Nozzle Air Consumption Chart: CFM and Abrasive Use by Nozzle Size and Pressure
Kresco air consumption tables for suction and pressure blasting: CFM and pounds of abrasive per hour for 1/8″ to 5/8″ nozzles at 40–120 PSI, plus a step-by-step method for sizing the compressor, with a two-operator blast room example.
Blast Room Quote Checklist: Everything Kresco Asks Before Pricing a Sandblast Room
The nine groups of questions behind a blast room quote: production rate, parts and abrasive, blast pot and nozzle, enclosure and doors, recovery floor (mechanical, hybrid, pneumatic), dust collector and NFPA options, parts handling, utilities, installation.
Blast Room Preventive Maintenance Checklist: Booth, Blast Pot, Screw Conveyor, Bucket Elevator and Dust Collector (with Kresco Part Numbers)
Daily, weekly, monthly and 2,000-hour maintenance for a blast room: rubber lining and door seals, the nozzle drill-bit test and CFM table, screw conveyor hanger bearings, bucket elevator belt tension, CDC cartridge collector and DCT1000 tuning, DCM200 baghouse bags. Kresco part numbers included.
Combustible Dust and NFPA Protection for Blast Room Dust Collectors: KSt Values, Dust Classes and the Four Ways to Protect a Collector
Which blasting dusts are combustible (aluminum KSt 415, magnesium 508, corn cob 75, sand 0), what the ST-1/2/3 classes mean, and the four NFPA 68/69 protection strategies Kresco builds into CDC Series blast room dust collectors.
Blast Media Chart: 22 Abrasives Compared by Hardness, Density, Recyclability and Application
A reference chart of 22 sandblasting media types with mesh size, shape, Mohs hardness, density, number of recycle cycles, working speed, blast pressure, relative cost and typical applications, plus how to use it to pick media for a cabinet or blast room.
Rust Converter Primer for Restorers: CorrVerter on a 1947 Sedan
Every restorer eventually meets a piece of steel that cannot be blasted. The floor pan of a car that still has its interior in, a cast-iron grate that would lose its detail under grit, a frame rail you can reach with a brush and nothing else. The usual answer is to...
Zero-VOC Clear Coat at 1 Mil: EcoShield 386 Pipe Mill Yard Test
A clear protective coating on a production line has to do three things at once and gets credit for none of them. It has to go on thin, because film costs money and the customer wants to see the steel. It has to dry fast enough to stencil and stack a few minutes later....
VCI Paper for Ammunition and Defense Storage: Why CorShield VpCI-146 Has Been Protecting Brass, Steel and Copper Since 1998
Ammunition corrodes like any other metal assembly, only with higher stakes A loaded cartridge is a small multimetal package: a brass or brass-plated steel case, a copper or copper-alloy jacket, a steel or lead core, a primer cup and a crimp. Store it in a humid...
Forklift and Plow Truck Rust Prevention: A Fleet PM Recipe
A forklift that spends two years inside a food plant with brine on the floor, or a plow truck that spends every winter in road salt, comes back looking ten years older than the hour meter says. The mast rusts at the slides, the frame rusts along every weld, the wiring...
Engine Hot-Test Rust: Fix It in the Coolant, Not the Dryer
An engine comes off the hot-test stand, the coolant is drained, and by the time it reaches the shipping dock the water left in the jacket has evaporated and left a bloom of red rust on the passages. Nobody sees it until a customer pulls a freeze plug, or a warranty...
Storing Equipment Outdoors for a Year or More: The VpCI Layup Method Used on Turbines and Military Vehicles
Two case histories, one method Cortec published two pieces in recent weeks that describe the same preservation method applied to very different assets. One is an article on protecting turbines during transport, layup and outdoor storage, with field results from three...
Engines That Rust After Hot Testing: The Cooling-System Additive Diesel Builders Are Standardizing On
If you build engines, you already know the problem even if you have never put a name to it. The engine runs on the hot test stand, it passes, it gets drained, and it goes to the yard or into a container. Weeks or months later it comes back out with rust inside a...
Winterizing the Cooling Tower While the Boiler Comes Back On: Two Corrosion Steps Most Fall Checklists Skip
In most Illinois and Wisconsin plants, the same two weeks in October carry two opposite jobs. The cooling tower or chiller comes down for the season, and the boiler comes back up. Both jobs usually have a checklist. Neither checklist usually has a line on it for...
Salt, Fertilizer and Coal Yard Loaders: VpCI-391 or EcoShield 386
A front-end loader that works a deicing salt pile, a fertilizer dock or a coal yard looks ten years old after one season. The paint chalks and lifts, the bolt heads and hydraulic boxes bloom with rust, and the trade-in value goes with them. Fleet managers on the Ohio...
Gearbox Shipping: 0.3% VpCI-329 Instead of a Full Oil Fill
A gearbox that leaves the plant with an empty case rusts on the teeth and bearing races above whatever oil film drained off in the first day. The traditional answer is to ship it full of oil, which means paying to fill it, paying to ship the weight, declaring the...
Clean Once, Package Right, Never Re-Clean: How VpCI Packaging Takes the Wash Line Out of Receiving
The hidden cost of shipping parts in oil Most machined and stamped parts still leave the plant the way they did forty years ago: dipped or sprayed with a rust preventative oil, dropped in a poly bag or a wax paper wrap, and boxed. It works, but it moves a job...
MilCorr VpCI Shrink Film: The Outdoor Wrap That Took a Hurricane
The question we get about outdoor preservation is never whether the film keeps rain off. It is whether the wrap will still be there after a season of Midwest wind, ice and sun, or whether somebody will drive past the yard in March and find blue plastic in the fence...
A Nitrogen Blanketing Alternative That Nobody Has to Monitor: Fogging Idle Equipment with VpCI®-337
Nitrogen blanketing costs money, needs constant monitoring, and can asphyxiate. Waterborne VpCI fogging protects idle tanks, vessels and HRSGs without any of it.
Water-Based Rust Preventative Cut Costs 30%, Ended Slip Hazard
The rust preventive oil at the end of the line is usually doing its job. The parts do not rust. What it also does is drip off the rack onto the floor, drift as a mist onto every machine within twenty feet, put VOCs in the air, and hand the next operation a part that...
