OPACI-COAT-500® Passes Full Range of Testing Under GANA 89-1-6(2008)
April 22, 2010 by Kris Vockler · 1 Comment
Important news that I neglected to report on, this occurred back in December 2009. OPACI-COAT-500® was subjected to testing under the Glass Association of North America 89-1-6(2008) Specification for Environmental Durability of Heat Treated Spandrel Glass with Applied Opacifiers.
All colors submitted passed all sections without issue. Contact ICD for a copy of the full report.
LinkedIn Discussion: Market Development, How To Do It?
February 2, 2010 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
In an economy downturn, one of the ways a company can grow is to find new markets for existing products or services. Using us for an example, taking our knowledge of silicone coatings to markets such as: plastics (polycarbonate), metals (aluminum), and concrete (additives and sealers). Yet I’m sure you are saying, “easier said than none Vockler”. I know, it’s hard, finding new markets is not easy. Yet there are individuals out there who do that type of work their whole career’s. I’m not one of them, I’ve spent my 12 years at ICD, marketing to the glass industry.
So, my new push is to develop new markets, find those problems that need to be solved. We as a company have a huge depth of knowledge when it comes to the chemistry of silicones and hybrid variations of silicones. Once in a while someone calls and asks if we have a coating for this or for that and it’s lead to the examples I listed in the previous paragraph. But I want to do better, I want to become a Super Market Developer!
But how? How do I find stones to overturn?
I started a discussion over on LinkedIn, if you are not a member you should be, it’s a great networking and peer-to-peer discussion site. Not to mention if you find yourself out of work it’s a great place to find out who is hiring in your area of expertise. LinkedIn Group: Market Development
While you are there, feel free to link me as a contact: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kvockler
But if you don’t want to sign up for LinkedIn, I ask you, what do you do to look for other markets than you are in right now? Have you had struggles or maybe it’s easy and you have some tips, I’m all ears.
Silicone spandrel and frit spandrel are the same thing right? Part III “Spandrel In a Vision Area”
January 29, 2010 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
Same use but vastly different in not only application but composition, meaning many energy saving and environmental benefits.
OPACI-COAT Vs. Ceramic Enamel
Ceramic Frit vs OPACI-COAT-300/500® |
||
| CERAMIC FRIT | OPACI-COAT-300/500® | |
| Ceramic clay applied to glass is heated to 1,100°F(600°C) and becomes fused to the glass. | 50% silicone, 50% water solution is sprayed, roller coated or curtain coated onto glass and dried by evaporation of water (either ambient or oven) curing the silicone to the surface of the glass. | |
| Unlimited, because the frit is fused to the glass. | Unlimited. Silicones have an excellent track record in construction. OPACI-COAT-300/500® has been in use for more than twenty years. | |
| Ceramic frit does not break down when exposed to ultraviolet rays. | OPACI-COAT-300/500® does not break down when exposed to ultraviolet rays. | |
| Ceramic frit has noability to help glass remain in an opening when broken. | Silicone bonds with the glass and will hold broken glass in an opening when applied at a wet film thickness of 13 mils. | |
| Cannot be repaired if frit surface is damaged. | Silicone surface can be repaired in the field if scratched, or touched up if coverage has noticeable light areas from the exterior. | |
| Matches very well with dark colors. Can have noticeable lines or streaks in light colors. Most reds and yellows are impossible. | Exceptional color matching capabilities (including reds and yellows) with 3 day lead times on most sample and production orders. | |
| Contains solvents and other heavy metals that create hazardous materials disposal concerns. | Does not contain any environmentally hazardous ingredients. No lead or heavy metals. We are Green! | |
| 5 years by fabricator | 10 years | |
| Ceramic frit cannot be applied to the reflective surface of the glass. | OPACI-COAT-300/500® may be applied to wide variety of reflective as well as pyrolitic glass surfaces. | |
What is Spandrel, Vision Glass, and the Difference Between Frit and Silicone? (3 Post Series) Part I
Most Overheard Questions About Spandrel Part II “Can I Put It In A Vision Area?” Part II
Most Overheard Questions About Spandrel Part II “Can I Put It In A Vision Area?”
January 15, 2010 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
It probably looks fine from the outside
And the answer would be a resounding no.
The second most popular question, which is also the number one issue with spandrel glass in the field next to incompatible components in the cavity, is if a spandrel can be used in a vision area. No, spandrel glass can not be used in a vision area, be it enamel or silicone or anything. All coatings have small perfections like craters and pinholes. To ensure these flaws don’t appear, the cost of applying the coating goes up. Due to needing clean rooms and more precise coating equipment.
Bottom-line is, all spandrel glass will have pinholes and light/dark spots from the application, yet there are ASTM and GANA standards that show the acceptable limits of these features. If you place these glass panels in a vision area, where someone would be behind the glass looking outside (meaning light behind the glass), they will look very poor. These types of glass are not meant to be used with light behind them, the were never created this way and will never be. But if you want an opaque glass in a vision area, just telling the fabricator will reduce your headache when the glass looks like the milky-way. Several practices can be employed to reduce or remove the pinholes and light/dark area. Of course, cost goes up.
Need some docs on how to view spandrel glass for quality, once installed? Check these out:
So, remember, keep spandrel glass out of the vision area, it’s not intended for this use.
Productivity Tip: Setting a Proper Out-of-Office Message
January 6, 2010 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
Courtesy http://www.zazzle.com/ "The Away Message Shirt"
I have to admit, I’m lame when it comes to letting my out-of-office message, for some very lame reasons. Reason one is I forgot how to set the welcome message on my office phone. doh! Second, Mac Mail doesn’t offer an Out-of-office Message like Outlook does, so I just skip it. Even if there is a workaround to get it to work.
I pledge to do better and keep you all happily informed when I’m not going to be in the office. Until then, join me in creating better messages. Found this info on one of my favorite blogs; Lifehacker:
When leaving an away message, use the following format for the best communication.
1. Dates of your absence. Let the contact know when you are out of the office. It helps them decide what their next step is going to be; whether to wait for your return or to direct their request elsewhere.
2. Reason for absence. I like to let my contacts know whether I am on a business trip or vacation. A business trip means I am connected to the office in some way and might be able to respond to a message. If I’m on vacation, I’m out of contact range.
3. Who to contact in your absence. I try and leave contact information for alternate contacts when I am out of the office; a minimum of one up to as many as are needed.
Set an Effective Out-of-Office Message to Reduce Workload [Lifehacker]
Original post: Tips for leaving a good out-of-office message [Ian's Messy Desk]
What is Spandrel, Vision Glass, and the Difference Between Frit and Silicone? (3 Post Series)
January 6, 2010 by Kris Vockler · 1 Comment
Ok, so this started out as one post but grew so much, it had to become a 3-part series. The most common questions we hear about our spandrel coatings are:
#1 What is Spandrel?
#2 Can I put Spandrel in a vision area of a building?
#3 Silicone spandrel and frit spandrel are the same thing right?
Those are indeed the top three questions I get about spandrel, the little known part of a glass building that can have the greatest aesthetic impact.
PART I – What Is Spandrel?
Definition:
span-drel [span-druhl] – noun
- Architecture. an area between the extradoses of two adjoining arches
- 2. (in a steel-framed building) a panel-like area between the head of a window on one level and the sill of a window immediately above.
Meh huh, what?
The origin of the word spandrel comes from the 1400’s as an architecture term to describe the space between two arches, as in the illustration below. It’s that arch between the arches, in this photo, where the two women reside. It’s spanning the distance between the arches and helping to give structural support.
- Courtesy http://danceswithanxiety.blogspot.com/
Somewhere along the line of history, architects or the glass industry took the word spandrel and applied to to an all glass building. If you look at the photo below, you can see where the office area would be and a shorter glass level under that. This is spandrel and it’s a level of glass that is opaque and colored, which also hides the electrical and mechanical areas between the floors of a building.
To opacify the glass, one of several products can or have been used; ceramic enamel, silicone elastomers, urethanes, films, etc. In fact, when we started ICD, the three big spandrel coatings were ceramic enamel, inexpensive urethanes, and polyester film. Around 15 years ago, due to many performance and cost issues, polyester films suddenly ceased being used. The hole left from that was filled by the two next most popular coatings, ceramic enamel and silicone (or more specifically OPACI-COAT-300).
Ceramic enamel is a very viable way to opacify glass and has had a very long history in doing so. The product is a coating that used to be sprayed on glass (and still can be in some areas), but today is roller coated or screen printed, run through a drying oven (flashing off volatiles) and then run through a tempering oven. In which the coating is fused to the glass and the glass is heat treated at the same time. To do this, the components of the coating have to withstand very high temperatures (such as heavy metals, organic pigments that have carbon in them will burn up and those temperatures). Great advancements have been made in the last few years to help make enamel more green but it still suffers due to having to use temperature resistant components.
Fast forward to today and we have ceramic enamel, silicone and to a smaller extent urethanes, acrylics and panel systems. There are some big differences between the two most used products; enamel and silicone.
So, to sum up what “spandrel” is to a building, it’s the opaque and colored section of glass between the office floors in an all glass clad building, often hiding the mechanical components of the building. I should add one more bit, due to the increases in high transmittance and high reflectance glasses today, architects can now use the spandrel cavity as either color accent or pick colors for the glass to harmonize with the vision glass. Neato!
I’ve also heard that it’s a military missile as well. =\
To Be Continued with PART II “Can I put Spandrel in a Vision Area?”
Happy Holidays From ICD High Performance Coatings
December 24, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Just wanted to drop by to wish everyone a fantastic holiday and let’s raise our glasses to 2010 being better than they are saying.
Cheers to all!
Blogs, Friends, News You Should Be Reading
December 16, 2009 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
I ♥ Blogs
This post is dedicated to them.
My favorite blog reader?
I ♥ Google Reader
My favorite “General Business Blog” is Business Pundit. Great variety of topics and links to further information, a very well put together blog on business. The Pundits recent post “The 75 Best Business Blogs of 2009” is full of some great blogs you should be reading if you are interested in business. Who isn’t right?
I ♥ These Blogs that Business Pundit Also ♥’s:
Evil HR Lady (Q&A – Obviously HR Stuff, love her take on issues)
CopyBlogger (Online Marketing)
My biggest “I ♥” goes to Max Perilstein of “From the Fabricator“, it’s a simple hold nothing back blog about the architectural glass industry. He gives heat and he takes heat, at the moment due to changes in industry events, he’s seeing more heat than normal. Hang in there Max, this one’s for you:
Finally, I ♥ You, the Reader. :)
Color, Colors, And More Glass Coating Colors
December 14, 2009 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
One of the hardest things to convey is how infinite a color palette we have. Just about all coating companies have this, with color computer technology, the sky is the limit. Although custom color matching comes with caveats, such as having 50 of the same grey color with only such slight variation you can’t really see the difference. Often we put out color cards or brochures that showcase specific palettes of colors, or specific industry colors; this often leads to a misunderstanding that those are the only colors we can do. From a marketing perspective, it’s down right frustrating.
To further muddy up the water for some and make it more clear for others, we are pleased to show some new pages to the website dedicated to colors. Mind you, every monitor is different, please ask for a sample before you decide you like a color. I can 100% guarantee that the color on one computer to the next and what you actually get will be totally different.
None-the-less, check out some new colors:
Select Any Color – Color Card Brochure
OPACI-COAT-300/500® Standard Colors
OPACI-COAT-300/500® Primary Colors
Top 3 Things That Make Me More Productive
December 10, 2009 by Kris Vockler · 2 Comments
My goal with the blog isn’t to constantly talk about coatings and glass or whatever the industry topic might be. Sometimes I just want to share things I’ve found to make life and work easier. Maybe it’s a PC (I’m a Mac, so that hurt to write PC) tip or a Windows (which needs al the help they can get) tweak.
#1 Thing that helps make me productive, my Mac:
My Mac, yup “I’m a Mac“, but I wasn’t always a Mac. Most of my computing life was done on a PC but now that Mac’s have become easier to use on Windows Network environments, why not use them? It’s been said over and over, Mac’s just work and they work out of the box with the need to buy less software at first, they just give you stuff you can use. But to make it work in a PC environment, there are several things you can do (that cost) to make it all work. I use Bootcamp to run both Windows and Mac OS on my machines (desktop and laptop Macs), one machine even uses VMFusion, a program that emulates Windows in a Mac environment, but this is my least favorite as it slows things down. Bootcamping Windows is amazing, you get a choice when you startup your machine, do you want to boot Windows or Mac. Gotta say, my Macs run Windows better than any PC I ever owned. =\
You don’t even need to do the dual boot if you don’t want to, you could work in a PC environment and run a Mac on the network without an issue. Using Mac based office software is super easy (better than Microsoft IMO), one can save in the Mac format or in Word, or Excel or whatever. Cross-platform, you gotta love it!!
#2 My iPhone (Wow, I guess I really am a Mac)
Back in the day, before iPhones, I was notorious for getting a new phone every six months as the newest would come out. Not because I have this urge to shop (well maybe I do) but because I was looking for the best phone all the time. Then the iPhone came out and I’ve never bought a new phone since. In fact, I stayed with the original iPhone for like two years before I got a newer but not the newest one out, I found them that useful.
It’s like having a mini-desktop in my pocket. What did I do before the iPhone??
#3 Web portals (I.e. iGoogle & Netvibes)
This is another of those, what did I do before them kinda thing. Before Google came out with their “widget” customizable web portal, I was creating grouped links on a webpage to have all my favorite sites and stuff in one place. Yea, it was lame but at the time it was productive. Then came Google and their iGoogle, where you can add widgets to a page and make the page look the way you wanted, graphically. It’s the first big web portal I used and I loved and used it for a long time.
About the same time iGoogle came out, NetVibes came out but it was hard to use and buggy. So the other day I went to NetVibes again and I like it way more than iGoogle so I started using it again. Here are some screen shots, showing why I love it. All my info; news, blog feeds, fight info, travel stuff, Twitter, photos of my son, etc.
Blog Contributors
CEO of ICD High Performance Coatings, from chemist to marketing and operations.
Sales Manager & Architect Specialist of ICD High Performance Coatings.