When Concentration, Temperature, and Time Aren’t Enough, Seacole Has a Solution

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Earlier this month, we shared how titration testing often solves poor-quality parts cleaning. But sometimes, parts cleaning operations continue to produce poor work even after you’ve recalibrated the concentration of your detergent. You’ve checked concentration and are running your bath hotter and longer and your parts still aren’t clean. What’s your next step?

In our experience, if you’ve accounted for concentration, temperature, and time and you’re confident your equipment is in working order, it’s time to see if ancillary chemistries may help improve your parts cleaning process. Bath additives can help you tackle three remaining issues that may be producing poor-quality work: tough soils, synthetic greases and oils, and environmental conditions.

Removing Tough Soils

Parts such as locomotive engine heads and engine blocks produce tough soils. These parts run so hot that paint and soils are baked on. You can remove excess or heavy carbon-based soils with a quality surfactant. Spraydet Turbo Charge is non-VOC and can remove carbon deposits, mill oils, heavy greases and lubricants, and other tough soils. While it’s tough on grime, Turbo Charge will not damage the base metal of your parts or leave a residue behind.

Reducing Foam and Bubbles

The formation of bubbles is usually associated with cleaning. But adding complex detergents to a washer before it reaches the correct operating temperature can lead to excessive foaming and even washer overflows. Defoamers are designed to work with all sorts of different types of soils, including synthetic lubricants. One of our favorites is Defoamer O, a highly concentrated, non-silicone defoamer. It works well in systems that have excess foaming or a buildup of soils.

Accounting for Environmental Conditions

Adverse environmental conditions or delays in the processing of parts following the cleaning step can lead to the formation of flash rust and corrosion on your parts. Add a corrosion inhibitor to your bath to prevent rust forming on your parts. 571 Rust Inhibitor works well for short-term corrosion resistance, while 577 Rust Inhibitor is ideal for long-term applications.

Lastly, consider the environmental conditions within your parts cleaning equipment. Is foam, scale build-up and grime gunking up your process? Clean-out chemistries clean out your actual parts washer. Over time, wash equipment can build up layers of scale from hard water, excess detergent and soils, and start to rust. Customers often see build up and corrosion in the nooks and crannies of their equipment. Running a non-acid wash like Spraydet 131 through the equipment periodically helps strip these contaminants and help maintain the efficiencies and appearance of your equipment.

If adjusting detergent concentration, temperature, and time is not improving the quality of your parts cleaning operation, it’s time to consider ancillary chemistries. Seacole’s technical department and sales team works with you to create a custom solution for your specific soils and process. Contact the Seacole team today for expert help.


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Keep Your Parts Cleaning Process Running Efficiently with Titration Testing

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Quality assurance departments can spend a lot of time, resources, and money trying to figure out why their parts cleaning process is producing poor work. Before you invest your company’s resources running Kaizen events and implementing Six Sigma or other problem-solving tools, take a look at your chemistries.

Common Parts Cleaning Process Challenges

Many quality assurance teams discover there’s a problem in their process when poorly cleaned parts result in rework or poor performance in the field, resulting in customer complaints. They may find themselves running wash cycles longer and still find residue on parts.

An inefficient and ineffective parts cleaning process leads to higher energy and labor costs. An inefficient process can lengthen lead times in delivering parts to customers, throwing off their timelines. If your process is producing poor-quality work, it could damage your company’s reputation in your industry.

Possible Reasons for Poor-Quality Parts Cleaning

Poor-quality parts cleaning can have several different causes, but  two of the biggest factors in parts cleaning are temperature and time. Seacole always suggests following the manufacturer’s operating instructions for temperature settings on their equipment. Running at the right temperature can allow Seacole’s detergents to do the hard work, resulting in cleaner parts and a shorter wash cycle.

Once your machines are effectively cleaning parts, all that soil has to go somewhere! Another significant factor is the cleanliness of the bath. If your parts are taking longer to clean, the solution of detergent is likely spent, overloaded with soil, and in need of maintenance. To keep these factors in check, and get the best value out of your investments in equipment and chemistry, Seacole strongly suggests using titration testing.

Titration Testing Rapidly Determines the Cause of Poor Quality

Titration testing measures the concentration of parts cleaning detergent in your bath water. If the concentration is too low, your parts will not be completely cleaned. Weak solutions coupled with hard water can lead to scale and lime build-up in your equipment. This can lead to costly maintenance down the road. If the concentration of detergent is too high, the detergent could damage your parts or cause corrosion on your equipment.

Using titration testing to check your detergent concentration levels can produce substantial cost savings. When you optimize your detergent concentration, you save energy and labor costs with shorter wash cycles. You may even reduce chemical use by not overconcentrating your bath water or dumping an entire bucket at once.

But even if you need to increase the concentration of detergent in your bath water, you could save money. The consequences of poor-quality parts cleaning from diluted bath water are often found in the field, after parts have left your facility. By not checking your detergent concentration, you may have to invest in rework and fend off customer complaints.

What Seacole Recommends for Optimal Parts Cleaning

Seacole offers titration kits calibrated specifically for our most popular parts cleaning chemistries. Our kits can be used up to 70 times and include step-by-step instructions. Our customer service department helps you interpret your test results and determine the optimal concentration for our application. We can also help you set up a maintenance schedule for your equipment to keep it in excellent working order.

Wondering why your parts cleaning process is producing poor-quality work? Seacole can help you diagnose and fix the problem. Seacole also offers companion products designed to enhance specific parts cleaning needs. Contact the Seacole team today to learn more about our defoamers, rust inhibitors, and boosters for cleaning carbon deposits from parts.


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