By: Davies Hood, Induron Protective Coatings President
Recently, Induron Coatings had the opportunity to co-sponsor an interesting CoatingsPro webinar presented by Murray Heywood of Corrosion Probe titled “The Ten Essentials for Avoiding Coatings and Linings Failures.”Along with other respected companies in the corrosion protection industry, like Gardco & Graco, our company was able to help promote Murray’s useful message to our industry. Rather than list each of Mr. Heywood’s ten points, I would like to highlight a couple of them and dive into a few quotes from this presentation that I found extremely insightful.
First of all, I’ve heard Mr. Heywood’s message of “Doing it right the first time is always the BEST long-term value” before, and I STRONGLY agree. In fact, it’s a message that we have been promoting here at Induron since we were known in the market as Indurall Coatings. The name change was 30 years ago, almost to the day. Needless to say, it’s a timeless message for the industry, and I’m glad that it was a prominent part of this discussion.
In addition to this, here are the two other points that stood out to me:
- Get experts involved early
- Ensure proper surface preparation
In almost all of the coatings and linings failures that I’ve personally experienced, these 2 points were involved (or not properly involved as the case proved to be).
And, lastly, here are a few things he said that really resonated with me:
“If you can’t immediately provide a Q.C. report, then they’re not real.” –Murray Heywood
In both my experience and Mr. Heywood’s, if a contractor or inspector delays much more than a few minutes (or a day if he’s in the field) to provide accurate Q.C. documents then they are most likely “doctored” or in some cases completely made up.
“Sweep blasting is not for the faint of heart.” –Murray Heywood
The other very true statement about sweep blasting is not one that is commonly known throughout our industry. Sweep Blasting is VERY HARD and should be only attempted by experienced blasters. Mr. Heywood’s recommendation is that it’s only a job for the BEST blaster on an experienced crew, and I concur.
The last statement that I’ll comment on here is more of a Yoda-ism
“However you pre-qualify a contractor… you must!” –Murray Heywood
This one is especially true and seems obvious but is not always adhered to in the world of “low bidder wins.” In a way, it brings us back to “Do It Right the First Time.” If someone knows how to prepare the particular substrate correctly, staff, supply and apply the correct products, we have a significantly better chance for success.
All this to say, I strongly encourage everyone involved in the corrosion mitigation industry to watch this webinar in its entirety. It is both educational and entertaining, or at least as entertaining as a discussion on “watching paint dry” can be…
Register to watch the webinar here: https://content.ampp.org/coatingspro/magazine-article/14826/The-Ten-Essentials-for-Avoiding-Coating-and-Lining?searchresult=1