What Advantages Can Zinc offer over Other Metals or Plastics?

Zinc is an element that has certain characteristics that when refined and processed is an excellent choice for making castings and coatings. Zinc offers many benefits that lend themselves to the die casting industry. Zinc is lighter in weight, offers significant reduction in wear and tear to the molds used which extends the life of the casting mold, the material itself is more cost-effective in specific applications as compared to aluminum, plastic, or most cast irons.

Zinc material is categorized by a series of alloys that when used in die casting offer an exceedingly high strength which means thinner Parts can be thinner walls on the castings can be produced. zinc also melts at a lower temperature which makes the liquid form of the metal more vicious and enables it to better fill smaller details with the mold cavity meaning it can go into tighter corners and more details compared to other materials. because zinc melts at a lower temperature it also solidifies at a much faster rate than other metals this helps reduce production time and enables more products to be made in a shorter amount of time than other metals.

Because zinc produces a better net shaped product details like threading can be directly cast into the product and thus reduce secondary operations like machining or even assembly, this helps reduce overall manufacturing costs and production time.

Zinc also offers a longer to life for the molds used in the casting in fact a typical zinc mold can last 10 times longer than an aluminum mold because zinc has fewer abrasive qualities and a lower melting temperature which does less damage to the tooling enabling it to last for a longer life cycle and reduces mold replacement costs.

When to Consider Using Zinc?

The materials used for developing a new product are selected at the design phase. This is where zinc should be considered as the material for use in manufacturing the product.

Zinc is not perfect for all applications, but it is well worth the investigation to see if it can reduce cost or improve quality or reduce the amount of secondary operations in producing a new product. The podcast is an interview with Dave Magner from DECO products (a leading zinc die caster in Iowa) that explains the advantages of zinc die casting in the manufacturing process and the types of products that zinc is best suited for. 

Many Thanks to Dave Magner | Deco Products - https://decoprod.com/

What do Metal Fabricators Do and How to Choose One!

Metal fabrication is the business of producing metal parts, components, and products out of metal. In business and manufacturing it is sometimes better to subcontract part of your work to a company that can more affordably produce the part or product you need. Small businesses may find they made need a shelf, rack, or cart to better run their operations and many find that generic standard products don’t solve their problem.

Enter the contract metal fabricator turning sheet metal into usable products not only requires the right set of tools and equipment but employees skilled and experienced in how to combine various operations and processes into a finished quality product. There are many factors in metal fabrication that most of us are not aware of and don’t realize the impact the create. Good metal fabricators take the time to understand not only the product you need made but how you are going to use it and make recommendations on how to best produce the item.

Some of the processes metal fabricators use include:

• Metal Cutting or Shearing
• Laser Cutting for thinner materials and Plasma Cutting for thicker materials
• Bending (using a brake press) or Stamping (a hydraulic or mechanical press that shapes metal)
• Machining (Typically CNC Machining) which removes material to make the shape or dimension accurate to the print.Painting and Powder Coating provides a protective and attractive finish to the final product.

How to Choose a Good Metal Fabricator!

As John Nelson from NSMC points out in our pod cast, you need to do your homework. Go to their websites, look up reviews on Google, and look at testimonial of clients who use them and contact them. Another key element that shows documented quality is an ISO 9001 2015 certification certificate. These certificates document that the certified company not only has met all the required quality certificates but is continually audited by an independent auditor to ensure their processes, inspections and documentation all meet the certification requirements. It’s a standard that is recognized throughout the industry and demonstrates a high level of commitment in process improvement.

A good metal fabricator should also ask you questions about what you want done, they should be able to provide an estimate and timeline for the work requested and may even offer recommended options or modifications to improve your part or product. Most contract metal fabricators employee a team of estimators who can work out all the details prior to your acceptance of the quote.

A good fabricator will also know when to say, “that’s not something we produce” and be upfront and honest. Great fabricators will understand what you need and offer alternative metal fabricators that may specialize in the process or part you are looking to have made.

Many Thanks to John Nelson, President Nelson Sales & Marketing: https://nsmc-steel-racks.com/index.html

Innovation in Grow Lights

For any small business that grow plants indoors, you know how important indoor grow lighting is to the development and growth of plants. The big challenge for most growers is to find new and better grow lights to improve growth and yield of plants while at the same time by mindful of your costs including buying and installing the lights and more importantly, the energy costs of operations.

Many growers rely on older technology simply because that’s what everybody else is using, some growers, to improve their operations and improve production, look to new technologies to help them grow their business. The technologies are diverse and each one offers pros and cons to growing plants indoors.

Before we discuss indoor grow lights, we thought it would be helpful to understand what makes a great grow light. How do pants react to light and what characteristics benefit growers as opposed to just marketing hype.

A quick Google search will quickly overwhelm one with thousands of articles, reviews, and products. We decided to talk to an expert and find out what should a grower look for in a grow light with comparisons of current technology and talk about innovations in grow lighting.

We spoke with Jeff Nall a lighting engineer and technical advisory board member for gGRO Horticulture about their innovative grow lighting system. The pod cast is very in depth and will certainly answer any questions you have regarding light and growing plants indoors.

Indoor Grow Lighting Pod Cast

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What Is Small Business Talks

For over 25 years, I have worked with small businesses across the country to develop strategic digital marketing plans for their business, along the way I have met and worked with some interesting people with some great ideas or stories about how met the challenges of being a small business or marketing themselves. I created this blog and pod casts to share their stories in their own words with other small businesses to help provide solutions to challenges we all face.

These businesses range from B2B manufacturing companies to commercial retail in just about every kind of small business you can imagine. I felt it was best to let them talk about their solutions, ideas or innovations so that others can learn and benefit from their successes.

I hope you find the posts informative, enlightening, and entertaining and hope you will visit their websites listed if you like the article. I also value your comments and suggestions and encourage you to post them.  

You can also hear the accompanying podcasts at Small Business Talks Podcasts

Thank you,

Neal Rabogliatti