Archive for the ‘R&D Corner’ Category

Give your achy hands a rest!

Most any car enthusiast has experienced the feeling of having tired, achy hands from sanding and polishing. Elbow grease is a inevitable, necessary evil of working on anything. I  am a huge fan of the look of polished aluminum wheels, nothing beats the shine of a mirror polished wheel. Unfortunately the time and effort taken to get a wheel to that stage is quite extensive. What makes it worse, is the first time it rains, or you take the car on a drive.. a little bit of that shine is lost.  I dread the task of repolishing my alloys before a show or cruise. Here at Eastwood we came up with a product that is meant to greatly reduce the need to resand or repolish a bare metal part.

This new product is our “Metal Protect”. With this product you simply spray a thin film on the part (for me it is the polished lips of my wheels), and let it dry. Once dried, it now becomes a protective barrier from most anything mother nature can throw at it. When designing and testing this product, our R&D team took a couple different parts and sprayed them with the Metal Protect. They then left the parts sit outside for MONTHS (about 3.5-4 months) uncovered, and naked to the weather conditions thrown at us over late winter/early spring (including record breaking snow accumulation we received this winter). We found  that the amount of corrosion and flash rust that occurred on these parts was stopped dead in its tracks! The brake rotors below both were removed from a car at the same time. Check out the amount of rust built up on the non-treated rotor!

Next we took a test panel (brass) and taped off one section while spraying the other half with Metal Protect. Even now, months later there is a definite line as to where we had taped off the untreated section.

This brings some great ideas to mind for the alternative ways this product could be used. One I thought of, is whenever I am doing body work or metal repair on a vehicle, I always have to fight flash rust. Normally your options are slim when dealing with flash rust. You have the option of simply spending the time sanding the panel before beginning work on it again (to remove the flash rust), or  to prime the area.. only to then sand it off later when you want to begin working on it again. This is where the achy hands come into play, not only is it tiring enough that you have to sand body filler, welds, old paint, etc. But to have to go around and do that process each time you want to work on the project.. well, that just gets quite annoying (and painful too!). What I suggest you do, is to spray the bare metal generously with Metal Protect. This will stop flash rust and corrosion (Even if the part is sitting outside for a short period of time). Then once you want to work on the product again, or before you top coat the part, simply wipe the treated area with PRE Cleaner. The PRE takes the Metal Protect off quite easily, and allows you to get right back to work.

Currently, we are also testing this product on rubber window seals, as well as plastic headlight lenses. How great would it be to preserve those rubber seals or keep those plastic lights from hazing? Currently we have tested,  and found that the Metal Protect is “Rubber safe”. This means your rubber wouldn’t turn white or discolor as some other protectants tend to do. The jury is still out on how long the formula will hold up when on the windshield seal or any other seal that sees tons of extreme conditions, but we know it will give a good barrier that is much better than leaving them untreated!

We’d love to hear you experiences and interesting uses for this product! Drop us a line, or add a review to the product once you have tried it out!

-Regards,

Matt M.

TwitterFacebookGoogle ReaderRedditTumblrStumbleUponShare

If it isn’t broken, try making it better anyway!

Here is another sneak peek into what we have been testing, designing and developing in our R&D department. Lately the shop has been buzzing, and I was able to snap off a few pictures and hold the guys down for a few minutes to get the scoop on what they were up to!

Recently our first batch of new Eastwood Welders have hit our warehouse and we have been working on getting these out to all of our customers that had pre-ordered. Because of this, we decided we’d break open a welder and do some more “real world” testing. We decided to build something that one of our customers may work on themselves. Below is a few shots of one of our R&D guys Mark welding up a roll cage from local roll cage provider S&W race cars. This thing went together nicely and was a treat to weld! Mark laid out some quick beads and the pile of tubes started looking like “something” pretty quick! The production welders performed flawlessly, just as all of our test units had done. We are excited to hear some reviews on these new welders and check out some of your handy-work with one of these!

With it getting to be show season, a big thing people are doing is polishing all the shiny bits on their ride. We have some additional/new buffing pads coming available in our catalog shortly. These are just in time for “polishing season”! Below you can see the assortment that Joe is trying out on a painted test panel. You can see how well the test piece shines with just the small portion he had done. Keep an eye out for these real soon! I know I’m excited to try them out on the lips of my new (to me) multi-piece race wheels I am refinishing!

Here at Eastwood many of us are as much enthusiasts as our customers. Because of that we are always looking to hone our skills and learn as much as possible about any product we currently sell. Today we had a master auto body technician come in and do a tutorial on some important techniques when using our spot welder. I found this very informative, especially when it came to the correct time to use each of the accessories for the spot welder. We hope in return we can pass some of this knowledge to our customers when you may have any questions or concerns. We also filmed this stud welding class and we are planning to edit this into a comprehensive video that we will be hosting on YouTube and also on our site. We hope that you can benefit from these tips as much as we did!

As always, thanks for reading and let us know if there is anything you’d like to read about or any topics you’d like more information about!

TwitterFacebookGoogle ReaderRedditTumblrStumbleUponShare

What are we testing and working on this week at Eastwood?

Here at Eastwood, we are as much enthusiasts as we are a “Big Corporation”. From testing products at length before releasing them, to working on our own projects, we are always busy! Below is a sneak peak at some projects we are working on currently.

Powder coating seems to be the favorite around the office for restoring those old parts for our projects. Below you will see we were testing our dual voltage powder gun while shooting  some parts, including a Ford transmission case and some Honda motorcycle bits. With the right prep and patience, you can achieve professional results with the dual voltage gun!

Now for some tips that may help you achieve better results when powder coating your parts. The first thing that is a good habit to get into is always wear rubber gloves when handling parts you are powder coating. This helps keep  the parts from getting any dirt or oils from your hands on the parts. The dirt and oils found in your skin can cause the parts to “out-gas” and create imperfections in the finish that you wouldn’t notice until AFTER baking. Another, is to bake the parts in your oven after cleaning. This will bake out any chemicals or oil residue found in the pores of the metal from handling and cleaning. Pre-heating time can vary depending on the type of metal you are coating, but we suggest around 20-30 minutes for most items. The last good tip, that often can be overlooked is to always sift your powders before putting them in the gun. Even brand new powder can get a little “clumpy” from the condensation in the container or even from the moisture in the air. The powder below was pretty much right off the shelf and still we found some small little clumps that surely would have cause “spitting” when shooting the powder!

You can find us constantly trying to test and improve upon our products. Below you can see we are testing some new sample wheel paints. We check for color matching, ease to spray, cure time, and durability. Every product we design and market goes through these tests before it gets to the catalog!

TwitterFacebookGoogle ReaderRedditTumblrStumbleUponShare

Insider’s look at a new Eastwood product and our R&D department

Welcome to  the first of my insider’s view of some new products we have on the way. Also below is a quick view of where we design, test, and develop all of our exclusive Eastwood products you see in our catalog!

First I thought I’d show you around the building a little to give you an idea of where all the “magic” happens. Don’t worry these spy photos got the OK, so we won’t have to use any “mob” tactics to keep you from sharing them with your friends!

Here are a few Random photos of the outside of our building, inside the retail store (feel free to stop in if you are a local to the Pottstown, PA. area!), our warehouse, and also the R&D department (including the test vehicles we use to test any products we can on).

     

  

Lately our R&D team has been quite busy designing and testing some new products and I’m happy to give you some photos of our new welders that are due to hit the market in March. These welders are going to finally give the DIY’er a industrial quality welder for just over entry level welder price (135 Mig under $300 and 175 Mig under $500)!  Also check out the photos of the go-kart frame we built from scratch with the welder and our (stay tuned for more on this shortly) tubing bender. Keep an eye on our Facebook/Twitter/Homepage for the debut of this new product!

    

   

Industrial Unit Weld       Eastwood 135 Weld        Low Quality Unit Weld   

  

Thanks for reading and watch this space for more spy shots, sales, and other news regarding your favorite restoration supply headquarters!

TwitterFacebookGoogle ReaderRedditTumblrStumbleUponShare

Testing 1-2 1-2

Repetition makes for the best final product. This is why our R&D department is always buzzing. From testing new products that are under development, to reviewing current products and seeing how we can make them even better. This at times can be a bit frustrating, but in the end we feel this what makes Eastwood products stand out from the rest of the industry. Here is a little insiders view on what we’ve been up to in R&D the past couple weeks.

One exciting new product we are very close to releasing is a product that is best described as an “inner frame coating”. Often times when restoring an old car or truck, you do extensive work to treat the exterior of you frame/chassis for rust. But, what about the inside of the frame? Many older vehicles actually rust from the “inside out”. This product is specially formulated to coat, neutralize, stop and treat the rust or corrosion found in those places you couldn’t reach with normal methods. This product is slated to be available in an easy-to-use aerosol can with a special “wand extension”. This “wand” has a machined brass tip on the end that has been designed to give a broad “fan-like” spray pattern (check the pictures below for a sample of what the spray pattern looks like). This is the key to fully covering the inside of the frame. You can even see in the pics below how there is a fine “green” mist of the frame coating coming out of the bottom holes of the frame as Mark is applying the product. Throw away everything your tech ed teacher taught you when painting something; with this product you WANT the coating to be dripping out of the frame. Seeing that will tell you that you are getting a nice thick coating inside the frame.

Keeping on the same wavelength of chassis and frame restoration, we have another product in the final testing stages. This product is being dubbed “After Blast” It is pretty easy to figure out when this product is to be used.. but to those that are unclear, it is a cleaning product sprayed on any part you have blasted. You simply spray  it on after blasting your metal clean and wipe down with a clean rag. I was amazed at how much contaminants it pulled out as Mark sprayed and wiped the chassis down numerous times! This is just another product that backs the belief that “prep is the most important step” when coating/spraying or restoring. Check out the pics below of Mark blasting the frame clean with our Eastwood exclusive Master Blaster Dual Blaster then testing the “After Blast” on the freshly blasted frame!

As many would guess, one of our best selling product lines is Powder Coating. Because of that, we are constantly testing and perfecting our powder coating products. The past couple weeks it has been the powders themselves being tested. First was our High Temp Silver powder. We were testing a couple different samples for 1.) how they sprayed out 2.)How they cured and flowed out 3.) How well they handled the high temperatures that we guarantee them to.

Also here are a few photos of some cool items being coated this past week at the Eastwood headquarters with some of our favorite powders! My personal favorite is J.R.’s vintage go-kart shot in our Starlight Blue Powder. Look at how all the “flake” shows up in the direct sunlight!

Hope you all enjoy this recent ”insiders look” at what we have going on here at Eastwood! Let us know if there are any products you would like to see as a DIY or blog entry.

TwitterFacebookGoogle ReaderRedditTumblrStumbleUponShare
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes