|
Metro Wheels develops new process to quickly strip wheels
by Tim Gowens - Owner, Metro Wheels and Accessories Inc.
For many years, Metro Wheels has struggled with how to remove the painted or powder coated surface of wheels. With the demand to provide high quality, it became an absolute necessity in our wheel repair and refinishing plant.
We purchased a large blaster and tried to remove the surface that way. It does remove the finish, but leaves the wheels pitted, which requires a lot of sanding and labor to make it smooth again.
We tried using various heat sources before blasting and, although it did help – a little – we still were not satisfied. The risk of using fire in the shop did not appeal to me, and the tanks for the flame were pretty costly.
It was the perfect opportunity to think outside the box of what has traditionally been done, so I invented something that’s worked out well. It has created a boost in our production times and my workers really like it.
I created a system that can safely dunk 3 wheels (up to 20") at a time into a chemical that completely strips all the paint and powder coat, leaving the wheel completely stripped of all paint. This chemical is tremendous; it has a slight odor but is tolerable. The system uses:
- A large polypropylene tank
- A system to dunk the wheels into the tank
- Air agitation
- The chemical, which needs to be heated and filtered
Once we started using the system, the gentleman in charge of the blasting became very excited about how easy production was now, mostly because his personal effort was cut in half.
The original process we used entailed:
- Removing all wheel weights and valve stems
- Placing the wheel into the blaster cabinet for about 10 minutes
- Removing the wheel from the blaster after it cooled down
- Placing the wheel into a second blaster. This upright manual blaster covered the hard-to-reach areas and corners, but could take an hour or more per wheel to complete. Because this system uses expensive acrylic blasting beads, it was costly as well as time-consuming.
- Moving the wheel to the structure department.
Metro Wheels’ new dunk system dramatically improves our timeframe for delivery, which makes for happier wheel repair customers. The chemical softens the paints. After the chemical dries, our dunk process allows the automatic blaster to quickly remove all paints and powder coats. This virtually eliminates the need for any manual blasting.
If you are interested in getting your wheels stripped, please contact Metro Wheels.
If you’d like to learn more about our dunk system, please contact Metro Wheels to see how we can build a system at your site.
This system will quickly pay for itself in the added production to the wheel plant. Perhaps you could provide the service in an area that is currently not being done, or you could use additional production in your wheel repair plant.
|
