Custom Molded Mask 3

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Custom Molded Mask 3

Turning trapped, heated air into a masking benefit

One of the challenges with masking tubes or other parts that trap air inside while the part needs to go through a curing oven is that air heats up. And if you remember from your science classes, heated air expands. And when the weak point in that system of "part, coatings, masking" is a plug or cap holding superheated air in place, sometimes a blowout occurs, which can ruin a part or cause costly rework. 

Viadon used superheated air along with the the scientific principle of air pressure to relieve that problem by entirely opening up a long fuel tube being ecoated. Because the top of the tube was capped off and the tube was then dipped into ecoat, Viadon made an open 'cap/plug' for the bottom end of this system. 

Look at the plug on this page. Note the long tubular structure. That's hollow/open all the way through. But the length allows ecoat to partially rise up inside - but - because the air inside is trapped from the cap on top, it stops before reaching the end of the tube, thanks to naturally slightly-higher air pressure inside compared to outside, keeping ecoating from rising to the inside of the tube. 

This completely eliminated the problem of a cap on the bottom end trapping superheated air during the cure cycle - because air simply heats up and flows out of the tube. 

This customer has ordered and re-ordered this part many times over, because it continues to just work - and, using simple principles of air pressure to mask a part that otherwise had been problematic for years prior. 

Color

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