Opportunities for 2009

With another new year around the corner, another chance to identify opportunities to improve processes has arrived. The dire financial news and global downturn has lots of companies and people putting their heads down to try to ride out the recession. In fact, NOW is the time to look at everything you are doing and figure out ways to makes things more efficient and productive.

Do you have systems that need to be upgraded? Would some form of automation allow you to move people into more productive areas of the operation? Are you spending your time and money to simply maintain your current business or to identify new products and opportunities? How can you improve your product or service offering and create a remarkable experience for your customers?

Now is the time to review everything in your operation (from marketing to production to bookkeeping to …)! Opportunities are everywhere - even inside your business. Go find them and create growth for you and the business. Here’s to an exciting 2009!!

Abrasive Blasting Media - Corn Cob Grit

A natural, organic blasting media like Corn Cob Grit provides unique properties and performance. Corn Cob Grit blasting media is extracted from the 'woody ring' core of the cob (it is not the entire cob ground up). The wood-like material is a very soft (Mohs 4) medium that also includes an ability to absorb moisture.

Corn Cob Grit is ideal for blasting delicate surfaces. It will strip paint, coatings and soils off many surfaces without impacting (etching, etc.) the substrate. Log home blasting (soft media; effective strip/clean rate), mold remediation (absorbency; strip rate; organic) and paint stripping (soft media) off wood surfaces are three predominant applications for blasting with Corn Cob Grit. Compared to high pressure washing, blasting with Corn Cob Grit leaves the surface dry and ready for immediate application of a sealant or coating.

While Corn Cob Grit can be recycled as many as 4-5 times, it is important to make sure that the collected media is clean so that damage to the blasted surface does not happen during re-blasting. Available in a variety of grit sizes, Medium and Fine are certainly the most popular.

Interesting fact: Corn Cob Grit is used for absorbent/drying applications such as soaking up wet ball fields and oil spills.

Abrasive Blasting Media - Walnut Shell Grit

Walnut Shell Grit is a fascinating material for blasting. The hardness of Walnut Shell puts it in between the soft medias like Plastic and soda and the more aggressive, common media like Crushed Glass Grit and coal slag. The combination of this hardness (MOHS - 4.5) and the angular shape provides for a decent strip rate with little to no affect on the sub-surface being blasted.

Applications such as aircraft, automotive and boat stripping can be accomplished successfully without risk of etching or warping the metal or fiberglass. Removing paint from brick, steel, aluminum and even wood can be accomplished with very low probability of damage to the underlying substrate. And if kept clean, Walnut Shell Grit can be re-used a number times increasing its value as a blasting media.

Sourced from the leftovers after extraction of the walnut meat, the shells are crushed and graded to a large variety of size distributions. This organic and biodegradable media is ideal in environments where safety and waste disposal are an issue. While the larger grit sizes (+60 mesh) are used in blasting, the finer 'flour' grades are used in a variety of applications including cosmetics and personal care products.