BULK CHEMICALS in the news

Finishing Agricultural Applications: Dialing in Pretreatment for Improved Adhesion

Reprinted with permission from the November 2022, Products Finishing Magazine, written by Scott Francis, Editor-in-Chief

Solving Paint Adhesion Problems - A farm equipment supplier’s quest to find the right cleaning chemistry.

You’ve heard the old saying, “it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.” Well, that dirty job goes a lot more smoothly

when you have high quality equipment. That’s exactly what Bazooka Farmstar Inc. (Washington, Iowa) prides itself on.

One of the agricultural equipment supplier’s divisions is dedicated to manufacturing high-quality equipment for the

liquid manure management industry. This specialized equipment consists of large pump mechanisms that are used to

extract manure from a livestock farm containment lagoon and transfer to a site where it is injected into the ground for use as fertilizer for crop farming.

Bazooka Farmstar quality and continuous improvement manager Joe Huston explains, “With big livestock

farming operations, you’ve got to have a waste management program. Typically, you’ll pump it twice a year. You need to

get your lagoon emptied out and the manure pumped into the ground before the winter when you get the frost in the

ground — you can’t do anything with it once you have frozen ground. And then you have a short time span in the spring

before you start to plant. In addition to getting rid of it, the manure also is very beneficial to crop growing. It has the

nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that everything needs to grow. So it’s a benefit for the farmers that are doing the

row crop farming.” Read more

For more information about how Bulk Chemicals can help you and your company, please call 800-338-2855, or email Kristy Kline at KKline@bulkchemicals.us

Conferences and the Connections We Share

Excerpt from Powder Coated Tough, March 2021

The absence of conferences over the past year has hampered our ability to effectively do business. Daniel Gendron, owner of Orlando-based The Awning Factory,  knows how crucial conference relationships are from firsthand experience. 

His company had been outsourcing powder work, and Daniel spent four months researching if it was prudent to bring the process in-house. As serendipity would have it, PCI was hosting their annual Tabletop Exhibition in his backyard, so he signed up to attend Powder Coating Week 2020 not knowing what to expect. Daniel mingled with attendees and began picking the brains of everyone he met. Soon someone suggested he go talk to the folks at Bulk Chemicals, Inc. By the time he left their table, Daniel was convinced he could build a powder line at his facility to improve quality for his customers. 

One of the must-haves for the powder line was an immersion tank for the pretreatment process. "I knew I wanted to move to an immersion system,” Daniel says. He continues, "I know that every part that comes out of the wash is 110% perfect.” Daniel worked with Bulk Chemicals to plan a 4-stage immersion line with 6,000-gallon tanks and selected a chrome-free pretreatment for their aluminum parts. The tanks were designed to create a vortex, which increases circulation and pushes and pulls the solution to clean parts. Daniel adds, "I also worked closely with Heraeus on the design of the gas catalytic infrared oven. The technical abilities of Heraeus are amazing and helped to ensure we are using the latest technology.”

The first conversation about the project was in February, and the project was finished at lightning speed by May 2020. "We’ve never quoted so much work or had jobs so big,” Daniel says. "It's a good problem to have.”

For more information about how Bulk Chemicals can help you and your company, please call 800-338-2855, or email Kristy Kline at KKline@bulkchemicals.us