Self burnishing EM coating

[GeneNewcomb]

Do those words mean anything to anyone so I don't have to go back to the chief engineer at one of the countries biggest trailer mfg and ask him what the heck he is talking about?
I am looking for a coating that will withstand acidic fluids and is impact resistant.
Thanks,
Gene
www.customdie.com

[mcaswell]

Depends what you mean by acid fluids.

Could be vinegar, or hydrofluoric acid. = Worlds apart!

How impact resistant? A light tap, or whacked with a sledgehammer?

[GeneNewcomb]

Thanks for the reply Mike. From you name I assume you are something of an expert.
I do spring latches for horse trailers many with an aluminum base and SS pin. SS has gone from $1/# to $3/# rapidly and I have been forced to increase my prices in the face of brutal competition from the Chinese. So I want to switch from SS to coated MS. www.customdie.com has several listed under hardware.
Aluminum trailers are usually rinsed in a solution of hydrocloric acid to was the weld black of and are exposed to acidic horse and cattle urine. The chief engineer at Featherlite Trailer also tells me that people will use pine chips as absorbent/cushion on the floor that soaks up the urine and ferments into even worse acidic fumes that eats zinc plating.
Some trailer makers use a xylan/xylene? teflon type coating on their fasteners. FL uses a proprietary coating from Rie Coatings in WI or MN. It seems to have a good impact resistance. It has a zinc rich bottom coat and two subsequent coating that they don't give much information about.
They charge $.50/# which is not cost prohibitive but a logistical pain because I'm in OK.
I can bake something on, check out my oven via the Ebay link on www.customdie.com but what?
So somewhere closer to vinegar and a light tap.
Gene

[GeneNewcomb]

How about something just impact resistant that I can put over zinc plating. Anyone know anything about E-coat?

[GeneNewcomb]

Tried to reach you via PM but your not set up to accept them.
Am I to assume Caswell does not have any suitable products?

[erckgillis]

I'm in TX and I can do several great coatings cheaply.

The question is dimensional tolerances. My Boron Nitride Coatings and Titanium Nitride Coatings can somewhat effect clearances at 0.003 or more. But are more expensive.

A Black Oxide will protect from any acid and has less than a micron (0.000003) as well coats and lubricates cheaply.

Metal Plating in a base metal like Zinc, Nickel or Tin can give a good base to plate other metals over milled steel, or left alone. But two issues

1) They are soft and not impact resistant.
2) Zinc Plated MS parts ar available "off the shelf"

A Hard Chrome over Nickel is best but also VERY expensive.

I can also do a outsourced custom Chrome Carbide but it's $250 a batch and we'd need bulk quantities of parts to run a batch.

So BN sounds best but check tolerances. BO is cheaper and I can do many parts very fast and MS works BETTER than SS for Black Oxide processes!
I can hit a $0.50 a part or less depending on volumes and shipping.

Ed
Dallas, TX

[GeneNewcomb]

Thanks for the advice Ed. I really appreciate it.
I'm picking up samples of ceramic powder coated parts to try today. They tell me it has good impact andf corrosion resistance.
Xylan is used in the aluminum trailer market but the color choices are not good but the ceramic can look near chrome.
If it doesn't work out I'll contact you but the $.50 with frt to Dallas is probably prohibitively expensive.
Thanks,
Gene