Have You Ever Wanted to Kill the Plater?
This tongue-in-cheek question starts the conversation about finding and developing trusted relationships between machine shops and finishing suppliers at IMTS.
An Epner Technology inspector sitting in a gold-plated bell jar the company finished recently. IMTS provides a place for machine shops to find platers and other finishing suppliers they can trust.
David Epner knew what he was in for when he made the sign for the last IMTS two years ago.
“Have You Ever Wanted To Kill The Plater?” is what the president of finishing shop Epner Technologies in Brooklyn, New York had splayed across his booth, and which has reappeared at IMTS 2018.
“A lot of machine shops are looking for someone they can trust with their parts,” Epner says. “We used it in 2016 and we had a lot of people stop by and say, ‘Yes, I do want to kill my plater.’ That just starts the conversation for us on how we can help them.”
Epner, an engineering and specification plating company that specializes in gold infrared reflective coatings, is one of many from the surface finishing industry who are on hand at IMTS 2018, offering to partner with job shops and manufacturers that need a quality finish for their parts.
Many of the finishing exhibitors are located in the SurfaceTechnology USA pavilion (East building, Level 2), which made its successful North American debut at IMTS 2016 thanks to a partnership with Hannover Messe. The event covers the entire spectrum of industrial surface treatment and finishing, from cleaning and pre-treatment to coatings, paint finishes and electroplating.
VaporTech from Longmont, Colorado is making its third appearance at IMTS this year, and is introducing two new thin-film deposition systems that deposit physical vapor deposition (PVD) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) coatings onto parts.
“We’re excited to share our new corporate video, including footage shot by Discovery Channel from inside our cathodic arc chambers as they are coating parts,” says Osie Gabriel, a marketing specialist with the company.
Other suppliers in the Surface Technology USA pavilion include 4D Technology, Applied Nano Surfaces, Brulin and Co., DMP Corp., Rapid Coating Solutions, Turbotecnica S.p.A. and Venjakob / Nutro Inc.
On other parts of the show floor, Steven Alviti, president of Bel Air Finishing Supply in Warwick, Rhode Island, has five different deburring and polishing machines in his company’s booth at IMTS 2018, including samples of actual parts from work in industries such as aerospace, automotive, medical, firearms and cutting tool industries.
“We have a robotic system that automates mass finishing into a one-piece flow, or just-in-time manufacturing cells,” Alviti says.