Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast brought to you by PGTI University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact podcast and today we are in a series called Windows and Doors 301. And in studio we have with us Chris Wolf. So welcome.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Happy Friday.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great day.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: It is a great day. And so Chris, tell us a little bit about your background, your experience, your current role and responsibilities here at pgt.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: Sure. So I'm the supplier quality and development manager. I've been at PGT, hired in direct with the PGT brand back in 2010, so 14 years. Over the years I've worked in quality, specifically as a quality engineer, quality manager at the plant, as well as an area manager. So I worked in production for three and a half years and then took on this role about nine years ago. So been in the supplier facing role for quite a bit. It's been a great ride. Got different background from other industries as well, coming from pharmaceuticals, automotive, telecommunications, working with electronics and things like that. So a lot of different quality backgrounds for my career. Been in quality general roles for about 30 years.
[00:01:23] Speaker D: Wow. Okay.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: And are you from Florida? Are you from out of state?
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Like, yeah, originally up from Pennsylvania. So born and raised in Pennsylvania, went to Penn State, proud Nittany lion, and then moved farther south to North Carolina and then followed some family down to Florida and been in Florida for 25 years.
[00:01:38] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: It's changed a lot in 25 years, hasn't it?
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Oh yeah, changed a lot.
[00:01:42] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Well, we're glad to have you. And so we are going to be talking about aluminum coatings. And a lot of these questions stem from questions that I get asked when I'm doing customer tours and I don't know the an. So I said, wait, there's really smart people here. Let's bring them in and we'll have some conversation about that. So I know some of these, but I'm going to let you be the subject matter expert today. So for aluminum, because my understanding is that we're about 50, 50 with our production, we're about 50% aluminum and 50% vinyl. So half of our products are aluminum. And so do we paint that or how do we get the different colors?
[00:02:18] Speaker C: Sure. So aluminum is extruded, kind of like a play doh press, if you think about it that way. You put the aluminum in, you heat it up to 900 degrees and then you press it through a die and that die creates the shape. So it might be a solid shape, it might be a hollow shape, but the die comes out and it's called mill finish at that point. So it's just raw extruded aluminum. Some of that aluminum we paint, some of that aluminum we anodize, which is a different type of coating. And they go through different processes to get to that point. Some of it we keep anode as mill finish. And then the mill finish goes into parts like the vinyl reinforcements. We use a lot of mill finish reinforcements inside other things, so that'll go into vinyl and reinforce that material for wind loads.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: And so when it's painted, like, is that the same thing as powder coating or is that different?
[00:02:59] Speaker C: So a couple different types of paint are out there. We use liquid paint and powder paint. Those are the two primary ones. A lot of companies started with liquid years ago because liquid, that technology was a pigment, then some kind of solvent to create that liquid and thin it out enough that it can be sprayed. And that's usually about 60 to 80% solvent in a liquid paint. But the reason for that is all that solvent then burns off and flashes off and is cured and through a nothing process is going to dissipate and then you're left with the pigment. So whatever pigment you want, you can make a liquid color very quickly. You can change those liquid colors very quickly. And it's easy for the supplier, the paint vendor, to send that to whoever's painting. A lot of people love that. Unfortunately, liquid paint usually is a thinner coating. And then as powder paint came out, everyone's like, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. We can put a thicker coat on there. We can also have a more durable coating for our product long term. But there's benefits to both and differences to both. At PGT and many of the brands that are in the Mitre brands group, they've got different paints for different purposes. When you're looking at a high rise or a monumental type building, when you're looking at something that's 30, 40 stories high, you never want to touch that 30th story again. You want to install it, be done with it. Birds might fly up there, you might get a little bit of wind, but you're not getting the high dust, you're not getting the high debris from a ground floor building. So there's different purposes for those on a high monumental building, you're going to want something that's a very long term durable coating that's going to be able to flex and kind of grow and change with the building as the Temperature changes up there. So typically it's a liquid paint and it's normally what we look at as Alma's requirement. 2605. And there's three different levels of paint and that kind of gets into the three different levels are there. The specifications from AMA are listed as 2603, 2604 and 2605. And they cover both liquid and powder. So there's 2603 requirement for liquid and powder. Both can meet that. Typically 2603 is a one year warranty, 2604 is a five year warranty, 2605 is a ten year warranty. So as people look at something that's going to be a long term monumental building, a hydrizer skyscraper, they're going to want that long warranty, not want to touch it again. So they typically go with the liquid. 2605.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Is it harder to get those custom colors when you're powder coating?
[00:04:56] Speaker C: With powder coating it is, yes. So different from having a pigment and then that solvent that goes and liquefies the pigment to be able to be sprayed. Powder coating is made differently. They take the pigment, it's very dense, they kind of make a slurry and then run it into a long sheet and create that sheet and then break it up. It's almost like peanut brittle if you think about it like that. So they take that sheet of putty and then break it up into smaller chunks and then they pulverize it into tiny little pieces into the powder. And so they get the consistency, they get the color look to it, and then they chop it up and then break it and pulverize it. So that powder coating takes a lot longer to process a custom color. So with powder coating, there's typically less choices for color. And to make that change to have a custom color, you need to have a little bit more lead time to be able to get that custom coloring.
[00:05:34] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: So what about like wood grain finishes? Because I know that we do offer that like on our window products, and those are aluminum. How is that created?
[00:05:43] Speaker C: So wood grain is a process called sublimation. And sublimation is kind of a neat thing. Sublimation starts out with a powder coated base and typically powder coating, I forgot to mention before, powder coating is a thicker coating. So just from the standpoint of the application of the paint, liquid paint is Normally at about 1 to 3 millimeters thick, 1 to 3 thousandths of an inch thick. So we call it mil, but 1 to 3 mil. And then when we look at powder, the spec for powder is 2 to 4.6 mil.
[00:06:07] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: So it's a little bit thicker. When we get to the wood grain finished, they normally will be on that high side, you know, 4, 5, 6 mil, to try to get enough base to get the inks to draw into it with sublimation. That wood grain finish is actually a separate product of the process. They first powder coat the whole stick, and then they'll take a bag with the texture and sometimes the texture, but typically the wood grain pattern on the inside of the bag. So it's printed and then folded around the metal around that powder coat. So the ink is actually facing the powder coat at that point, but it's a bag sleeve that slides over the stick. They draw a vacuum and get that bag to be smoothed out on the surface of the metal up against the powder coating, and then they send it through an oven. And the oven, the temperature and the time in the oven is what causes that ink inside the bag to pull into and actually draw down into the powder coat thickness. And the longer they have it in there, the higher the temperatures, the different process parameters will cause that ink to draw in more. You may get a slightly darker or lighter shade of that bag. It's the same exact stick, same exact run of film for the bag, but you might get slightly different results batch to batch just because of the amount of time and temperature that's in there. And the profile itself might have a little bit thicker coating on one stick versus the next stick.
[00:07:16] Speaker D: Oh, interesting.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: And then they take it out of that. After they've finished the oven process the cure process, they'll release the vacuum on the bag, pull the bag off, and the inks are actually the patterns actually in the wood grain into the powder coat base.
[00:07:28] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: So it's an integral part. It's not actually sprayed on or applied differently. The printing is inside the bag, and then that is just kind of statically put onto the powder coat finish, and the inks come into the powder coat.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: And because it's baked, it's not going to fade or it doesn't separate. It doesn't. Right, right, right. Oh, that's so interesting. Wow. Because I always wondered, like, how do we do that? Okay, well, now I know.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Yeah. And we can do it on different sizes, too. So when we got a sliding glass door or we've got a swing door, you know, a front entry door or something like that, they'll do it on what they call a skin. So the size of a table. They can take a big sheet of metal and basically the size of a table. They'll put a bag across that whole thing and then draw that pattern and color into the base coat.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: So it's done on the raw extrusions before the frame is assembled.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:08:10] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: So then you have to make sure that the grain is going in the right direction. Right. Because you want it to look like it's a legit piece of wood, even though it's metal.
[00:08:19] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: So that takes some thought.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: And it's great that you bring that up that it's legit piece of wood, because, I mean, no two trees are exactly the same. You cut one tree, and you're going to get certain rings and color through that tree. You cut a tree that's 100 years old, or you cut a tree that's 10 years old, you're going to have different rings there, Right. And you're also going to have different pattern through the height of the tree. You've got branches coming off, you've got knots in the tree. And so it's going to look slightly different. And that's one of the things that's a challenge. When we look at wood grain aluminum, everybody thinks, well, you can paint it, and it's going to be consistent. It's going to be the same color all the way across the stick. All the way. Stick to stick. Batches today to batches three months from now. But they're not always identical. And you really think about what you're trying to do. You're trying to simulate wood, and that's what wood does, Right? It grows and changes the same tree. You could cut the top of the tree off and six months later, cut the bottom of the tree, and it might look slightly different.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window indoor industry. Whether you are a customer selling our products or a homeowner doing research, the Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a good point. Oh, it's so interesting. Okay, and so what is Kynar? Because that's a coating, Right. But is it paint or is it powder coat or what is that?
[00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah, so Kynar is the brand name. So think of, like, Kleenex and tissue.
[00:09:37] Speaker D: Okay?
[00:09:37] Speaker C: A tissue is just that thing you, you know, blow your nose in. Kleenex is the brand name that became very popular, and everybody used it. Kynar is that same thing. Kynar is the brand name for a product that was around for 60, 70 years. Now everybody knows it, everybody trusts it, and it was the Brand name for the Alma 2605 paint.
[00:09:53] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: It was set up as a liquid paint originally. So Kynar has a certain chemical composition in it. Pvdf. So that PVDF molecule is a resin. And so it basically is. All these paints are typically an organic paint, an organic coating. So with organic coatings, there's going to be some change to it. There's going to be some ability for it to flex or move. Or sometimes with liquid coatings, they scratch a little bit easier than powder coatings. And most people think, oh, I powder coated something like a fence or the back of my car or whatever, and it's really stiff and durable and it doesn't scratch. That's pretty much true because of the type of molecule and the type of resin that's being used for powder versus liquid paint. So for the liquid paint, kynar is that 2605. It's a very durable paint from a color fade standpoint, from a gloss retention standpoint. Long term, you don't want things to fade in Florida. And so the requirements for 2605 being passed as 2605 paint is that has to meet 10 years in South Florida.
[00:10:43] Speaker D: Oh.
[00:10:44] Speaker C: So there's actually paint farms in South Florida where they take painted product of different colors and they just set them out and they go out, you know, every couple of months, they go out and look at it and measure the color, measure the gloss, measure the fade. They measure how much chalking, or if you think of, you know, sidewalk chalk, it's going to leave that dust.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: I think of the old windows I have on my house right now that are waiting for their replacements to come in. Yeah, they're disgusting.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: You talk to them, and that just gets white or bronze over your fingers, and you're like, what is that? Yeah, so that's the chalking of the paint, and that's actually, you know, over time, the environment is starting to allow that to calcify or to release some of that chalk to the surface.
[00:11:19] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: So I guess, like, we've kind of already talked about differences, pros and cons. Like, is there a cost difference between powder coating and regular painting?
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So with liquid paint, oftentimes that's a little bit less expensive than powder coat paint because of the process it has to go through. You can have a liquid paint that you can go down to Sherwin Williams and get them to mix up powdered liquid. Today they're going to take a base white, they're going to put some pigment in there, they're going to add some other solvents to make it sprayable for your spray system and then you're going to walk away with it. So it's very easy and quick for them. It's also very flexible where they can go and choose different colors and find things that are very quick and easy to change. So usually that cost is a little bit less. The price point is a lower price point for people to get into. Powder paint is more challenging to work with. It's a little bit higher processing time like we talked about earlier with the slurry and making that putty. And so it costs more to make the powder paint. So typically an element 2603 or 2604 or 2605, in that same lane of information, they're going to be a price point where the liquid paint is cheaper and the powder paint's a little bit more expensive.
[00:12:17] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: Now you do get, from a processing standpoint, the benefit of having the higher usage or utilization from the powder paint. Liquid painters, they're going to lose, they know they're going to lose 60 to 70% of what they buy. They're going to buy a five gallon bucket and they're going to end up with like 1 gallon of solid of actual pigment that's going to stay on the part. So they have to plan for that. They have to buy more paint than they actually need to spray on the lineal footage that they bought.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Powder paint is in theory, about 95 to 98% recoverable. So you spray powder and in a powder booth, if everything else is clean and captured and enclosed in that powder booth, you can recycle that, pull it back through a sieve and get it back in your process and use up to 95, 98% of that powder that you bought. Oh, so a box of powder, I'm just guessing numbers. $200 versus a five gallon pail of paint might be $50. But you're going to be able to use all that powder where you're going to have to buy more 5 gallon buckets of liquid paint to get to the same result.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: So we use powder coating.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: I would imagine all the brands use a variety of different ones based on what the need is.
[00:13:15] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: PGT brand uses a lot of powder coat and they use some liquid for some of their custom colors. It's also hard to get that sparkle, that bright metallic look. Like if you look at a car, it's got that metallic look. It's hard to get that from a powder paint. They've made some, a lot of advances over the years. And powder paint is looking better with that sparkle and with that fleck or flake in there. But typically that's usually a liquid because they're actually putting metal in it. So if they're putting metal flake in there, you're going to have to go to liquid. And then oftentimes with liquid paint, you've got a pretreatment of the metal to make it adhere and bond with the paint. And then you've got a base coat, the color coat, and then you'll have a clear coat on top of that. And the clear coat's there to protect that metal flake. If you didn't have that, it would oxidize. You'd see a car driving down the road. It's kind of, you know, gray or brownish looking because it's starting to quote, unquote, rust. And you, you'd have the same thing if you didn't have a clear coat over the metal flake.
[00:13:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: That was going to be one of my next questions, like how many coats or layers or whatever. So thank you for answering that question.
[00:14:06] Speaker C: I'll explain that a little bit further too, because liquid typically is going to be a two coat process. They're going to put a base coat on, which is going to be your primer. It's going to take that metal and allow the color coat to bond to it and then your color coat on the top. Now if you have that metal flake and then you've got to go to a third coat, which is your clear coat.
[00:14:21] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: So like the clear anodize that we offer, does that have that clear coat on top of it or is that a mill finish with a clear coat or what is that?
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Anodize is a totally different process.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:14:31] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: So anodize is really interesting. With paint, you're actually adding thickness. So you're going in, you're painting extra surfaces and coatings on top of the metal, the base metal, the mill finish. With anodizing, you're going in and treating that and etching the metal itself. So you take your mil finish and the process to anodize is to etch the metal, open up the metal pores kind of like a sponge. And it actually opens up those holes in the metal. If you look under a microscope, it's got little microscopic pores. It opens those up and allows you the metal to receive whatever color it is that you want. Oh, we use primarily clear anodize. Western windows uses primarily black and bronze anodized. So what they're doing and we'll talk black and bronze because it's a little bit easier to relate that they're putting the next couple of tanks that they put the metal into has that black and bronze metal or material in it to cause that to go into the holes, into the pores of the aluminum.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:15:16] Speaker C: So then that's going to get drawn into aluminum from the solution. And then when they take it to the next tank, after that color tank, they actually seal it and cover up those pores with another sealing material.
[00:15:25] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: So that next tank, after the sealing tank, actually covers up those pores and stops any kind of reaction or any more material from drawing down into the holes of the sponge, if you will. And then they take it into a rinse tank, another sealer, and wash it off. So anodizing actually reduces the overall thickness of the metal. Oh, if I came out with a 1 inch piece of metal and I painted it, I'm going to add some thickness to it. I'm going to add 2 mils, 2000ths of an inch. Some might end up with 1.003, 1.00, 4000ths of an inch. And if I go with anodizing, I'm going to reduce metal because I'm actually etching. An acid is taking away the surface finish.
[00:15:58] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: So the mill finish is going to go into the acid etch, whether it's just sulfuric acid or into an acoustic acid, and it'll reduce that metal in order to open up the pores, and it's reducing that size. So it might come out as 0.998 or 0.995 at the end with a clear anodizer, a black or bronze anodize.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Okay, so does that then affect the later stages of our manufacturing process?
[00:16:20] Speaker C: Not normally.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Because it's so small.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's so small. We plan in those tolerances. So most of the time we've got, you know, 5,000 plus or minus 5,000 tolerance, or plus or minus 10,000 tolerance on the overall size. And with a sixteenth of an inch, that's a big tolerance for a window, sir. Even at a 32nd of an inch in manufacturing, that's 32,000. So if we're taking 5,000 in anodizing and we've got a 32,000 tolerance for assembly tolerances, we've got plenty to work with.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: All right, so is clear anodized a longer lifespan versus a paint or powder?
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Typically, I've seen clear anodized longer than like a 2605 liquid paint. Liquid paint has a more susceptibility to scratching or marking it. And because of the thinner coating, one to two thousandths thick of the coating, there's a chance that it'll scratch through there. With a powder coat, you're at, you know, two to five mils or two to five thousandths of an inch. So you're almost double that thickness of the liquid coating. With anodizing, it's kind of a weird thing. It goes the other direction and reduces the overall metal thickness, and it has about a 0.7 mil, 0.7 micron coating thickness. It actually hardens the metal. Oh, so it actually creates a harder surface. It does sometimes scratch or mar, but it is typically more durable. So anodizing, that's why we put it down on the track of a sliding glass door or of a swing door. We'll have the sill be the anodized component of that because it's normally a little bit more durable.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Sure. And that's where you're going to get all the scuffs and all the traffic and, wow, okay. I'm learning so much. And I didn't even have half of these questions written down. Like, I knew you would be able to answer these off the top of your head. So if I'm a homeowner, how do I know what's best? Or, like, do I just trust the brand name, or do I need to get into the weeds around specifics? Or how do I know? Like, I don't want this to get scratched. I don't want it to fade. I want it to last longer. I'm going to live in my house for the next 20 years, and I don't want to have to go through this process of updating my windows again anytime soon. So how do I know what's best?
[00:18:09] Speaker C: So everybody's going to go to the Internet, right? They're going to go and they're going to Google what's out there. Great way to start. Kind of get yourself that basic education, understand what's there. I recommend going to the websites for the brands because those are going to give you some real good basic information, some sales and marketing materials around what that brand offers. But then go and talk to that professional. You know, whether you go to a Home Depot or Lowe's professional, or you go and contract with the dealer or someone that's going to be able to give you that insight. You're going to ask, okay, I'm going to live here in this house for another 20 years. What do I need? Or maybe I'm only going to live here for five more years, and I want to increase the value of the home. What should I get? They'll be able to direct you in the right way, and especially whether it's a liquid or powder. Typically, some areas of the country will only allow certain things because of the code in that country. And so if you're in South Florida, you're going to have certain code for hurricanes and wind loads. If you go to Colorado, you're going to have certain codes for cold temperatures and temperature gradient from outside the house to inside the house. So they're going to recommend certain type of glass to go with your window.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:05] Speaker C: And so it's really dependent on where you live in the country to know what's best for it.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: All right, well, this has been fascinating. Chris, thank you so much for your time today.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: And looking forward to our next conversation.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: Sounds good. Thank you.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: The Clear Impact podcast is brought to you by PGTI University. We are a part of Mitre Brands, a family of leading window and door brands united by our passion for quality and relentless pursuit of 100%. One of the missions of Mitre Brands is to unite and deliver the finest customer experience possible across the nation. Our window and door brands deliver regionalized expertise and products. Backed by a national company. PGTI University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window indoor products.
