In October 2024, Products Finishing attended FABTECH in Orlando, Florida. The event’s Finishing pavilion always offers a great opportunity to get insights into the latest innovations for coaters and finishers, and PF got the chance to catch up with Derek DeGeest, president of DeGeest Corp. and Lesta USA (Tea, South Dakota) to hear about the company’s latest developments.

The company held a ribbon cutting at FABTECH to announce its partnership with Eurosider (Toscana, Italy), provider of Nitrotherm and Polifluid technologies, which use nitrogen as a carrier instead of compressed air to deliver a more consistent finish to liquid and powder finishing applications, respectively. The solutions eliminate variables such as temperature and humidity in the finishing process and deliver up to 30% on system savings. According to DeGeest, the solution addresses an important step for manual finishing operations looking to introduce more automation. PF's On the Line podcast sat down with DeGeest to discuss trends in finishing automation and the challenges he hopes to address with Eurosider’s solutions.

In 2020, Andrew Kossowski, a former U.S. Air Force officer and seasoned tech entrepreneur, decided to embark on a new adventure. He was drawn to a traditional finishing operation known as DHS Enterprises based in Clearwater, Florida — a business that had built a strong reputation over three decades in specialized metal finishing, offering processes like anodizing, chem film, and passivation. Kossowski sought to revamp the veteran- and minority-owned business as Veterans Metal, a state-of-the-art finishing operation by implementing cutting-edge technology and expanding its service capabilities.

With a background in quality assurance and testing for military aircraft and experience as a telecommunications executive, Kossowski has brought a unique mix of expertise to his new venture over the past four years. In this installment of Products Finishing’s On the Line podcast, we catch up with Kossowski to hear the latest about Veterans Metals’ transformation journey and his vision for the what’s on the horizon for the company.

Products Finishing recently hosted its Parts Cleaning Conference, co-located with IMTS 2024. In this episode of the podcast, PF Senior Editor Lori Beckman interviews conference co-chair, Darren Williams, professor of physical chemistry and leader of the cleaning research group at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. The pair reflect on highlights from the 2024 conference and discuss industrial parts cleaning trends and current regulations.

New regulations involving PFAS substances are presenting new challenges for manufacturing in all areas, including surface finishing operations. In this installment of On the Line, Products Finishing interviews Louis LeBrun, vice president of sales with Axine Water Technologies, an industrial water and wastewater treatment company that specializes in an electrochemical oxidation technology named ElectraCLEAR that is designed to eliminate PFAS compounds.

In this bonus episode of On the Line, Paul Skelton, president of the NASF Palmetto Southeast Chapter offers an overview of the NASF Palmetto Southeast Chapter 16th Annual Fall Conference — Oct. 9-10, 2024 at Folly Beach, S.C.

The theme of this year's conference is "Succession on the Horizon" and the event features brilliant speakers, informative topics on impacting your business and the surface finishing industry, as well as manufacturing.

Recently, Products Finishing attended the SUR/FIN 2024 surface finishing industry trade show, an annual event hosted by the National Association for Surface Finishing (NASF, Washington, D.C.). This year at the show, the NASF announced a rebranding aimed at unifying various aspects of the organization, including its educational foundation, as well as its various chapters.

In this installment of PF's On the Line podcast, we speak with Vince Noonan, president of the NASF Foundation, president of the Metal Finishers Association of Southern California (MFASC) and vice president of strategic operations at Sheffield Platers (San Diego, Calif.) about some of these changes and what they mean for the finishing industry.

In the latest episode of Products Finishing's On the Line podcast episode, recorded at the SUR/FIN 2024 finishing industry tradeshow, we had the opportunity to sit down with executives a MacDermid Enthone Industrial Solutions to get their take on some of the latest trends in surface finishing from finishing solutions enabling various aspects of EVs to the latest sustainability and regulatory concerns.

Join us for industry insights from MacDermid's senior global V.P. Richard Lynch and V.P. of technology Timothy Gotsick. 

In this episode of Product's Finishing On the Line podcast, Chandler Mancuso, technical director with MacDermid Envio discusses updating your wastewater treatment system and implementing materials recycling solutions to increase efficiencies, control costs and reduce environmental impact.

Products Finishing recently attended the Metal Finishing Association of California's annual legislation day event, which provides a forum for finishing operations in the state to voice their concerns to government officials. In this installment of On the Line, we learn more about the initiative and the key issues for California-based finishers. 

OTL spoke with Bryan Leiker, executive director of the MFACA and legislative advocate Jerry Desmond, who works as the legal advisor for the MFACA. Leiker is also vice president of K&L Anodizing (Burbank, California) a 75-year-old family business, and has spent his career working to educate legislators about the efforts of the metal finishing community.

Recently Products Finishing traveled to Karlsruhe, Germany to attend Paint Expo 2024 and get a global perspective of trends in industrial coatings and to learn about the latest technologies. In this episode of On the Line, Gardner Business Media brand vice president for finishing and valve media Todd Luciano and PF editor in chief Scott Francis discuss some of the takeaways from the visit.