On the Line

Looking for insights into which events to attend as the tradeshow and conference season ramps up?

In this latest installment of On the Line, Products Finishing editors Scott Francis and Lori Beckman offer an overview of upcoming surface finishing industry events including tradeshows, conferences and workshops. Gain a sneek peek into the Parts Cleaning Workshop (co-located with PMTS), Powder Coating Week and the SUR/FIN 2025 surface finishing industry tradeshow.

With this installment of On the Line, PF looks ahead to an important upcoming event for powder coaters — the Powder Coating Institute's (PCI) Powder Coating Week in Orlando, Florida, which will take place April 14-16, 2025. In this podcast interview, PF speaks with PCI executive director Kevin Coursin about industry trends affecting powder coaters today, and what's in store for attendees at this year's Powder Coating Week.

Parts cleaning is a critical factor in achieving quality results in any surface finishing operation. In this installment of On the Line, Products Finishing catches up with John Clark, president of E & J Parts Cleaning Inc. (Waterbury, Connecticut) in a follow-up to a March 2024 profile story about the company's technical cleanliness expertise. PF executive editor Lori Beckman interviews Clark to learn about the company's latest efforts toward its goal of continuous improvement including the addition of new automated vacuum degreaser capabilities and the implementation of a paperless ERP system.

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.