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Electrons Contribute To Rust?

05/18/2012 11:12 AM

I have a customer who is complaining about steel doors that are rusting out. Not unheard of, but this particular case has some unusual details.

End user is the power company, these are described to me as control buildings, located remotely. I believe these to be at distribution and transmission substations.

Purchased together as a set, they are getting a steel frame and steel door. There is an occasional sale of a replacement door for an existing frame.

Doors are 18 Gauge cold rolled steel, frames are 16 Ga CRS. These are provided to my customer primed, intended for finish painting in the field. It is indicated that the doors are finish painted with alkyd enamel, which is in accord with manufacturers' instructions.

Customer complains of rusty doors, blistering under and finally through the paint. This is not showing up on the frames, just the doors. This is happening at about two years installed. During our conversation, I learn that before he started to buy these from me about two years ago, he had been purchasing these from one of my local competitors. This relationship was severed when there was an issue with rusty doors not being replaced at no charge… after all, they were only two years old and should not be rusting.

I am seeing a pattern here. This manifests ONLY at these control buildings, and ONLY the doors. Is there some explanation for this phenomenon?

Thanks for reading, any good ideas will become the property of LynDoor™ Industries. We will use the proceeds from your pirated idea for something philanthropic.

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#100
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Re: Electrons Contribute To Rust?

05/25/2012 5:48 PM

You are absolutely correct, MRI rooms are a special breed of cat!

Another way to deal with this particular issue is planning... think 'maze' or 'chicane'. These electromagnetically-nontransparent doors are ridiculously expensive, and notorious for maintenance troubles.

I have sold and installed a few of these in Air Force facilities; avionics shop is a common place to find them.

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#96
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Re: Electrons Contribute To Rust?

05/25/2012 5:16 PM

I believe the end user is interested in doors that last. I don't blame them, maintenance is a headache for everybody. That is why I am looking for a most likely root cause, we can find a good solution. If the doors are indeed defective, the manufacturers will step up to the plate and replace them, but not in perpetuity because that isn't a defect, it's a misapplication. The sand and gravel guys don't use the mini-pickups for deliveries, they use vehicles intended for rough service. They don't two-step 'em, they spec 'em out.

In general, institutions are interested in better or best quality stuff. They have better things to do than mess around with rusty doors, door hardware that won't last, radios that won't work, vehicles that are troublesome (I wonder how many Cavaliers are fleet vehicles)...

I have no idea if any of this was made clear to my customer when the power company started buying doors from him. There is a science to just about everything, but this is (apparently) a well kept secret.

Hey, if you want in on the newest LynDoor™ Industries project, we are getting ready to release two improved overunity devices: This site includes data about the Gravitational Amplification Process and the Atomic Hydrogen Furnace. Opportunity is knocking!

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#99
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Re: Electrons Contribute To Rust?

05/25/2012 5:47 PM

Nice site.

I'm sure the power company isn't interested in cheap doors.....................not necessarily cheap, but not right for the application.

Since these guys have decided to involve you in the process, I'd say, "Fine, lets have a lunch meeting with you, (middle man), me, (Doorman), and a person from the power company that's in charge of these purchases."

In the meantime, find a door that will absolutely fit the bill on these substations...............extruded fiberglass, whatever. And tell them that these are the doors they need to be using if they expect long term service under these particular conditions. Standard steel doors won't last long term, and you won't be replacing any of them.

PS- After the meeting, look your middle man in the eye and say, " Look dude, you're making me look bad here. If your not sure what kind of door to use on a particular application, call me. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it".

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#86
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Re: Electrons Contribute To Rust?

05/25/2012 3:01 PM

You said that these were steel buildings and I'm assuming that there are steel casings on the equipment. If the doors are the only things experiencing problems, I'd find out what kind of paint they're using on everything else and see about getting the spec's changed to use the same material on the doors.

I'm still not seeing this as a "free doors from Doorman" situation.

Another thing you could do is get a Sherwin Williams industrial rep to have a look, diagnose the problem, and recommend one of their products that they will stand behind........................then if they fail, Sherwin Williams can buy new doors.

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