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What Does “Talent” Mean in the Finishing Industry?
Roughly once a year, I hire someone talented. Talent is harder to define in the finishing industry than it is in sports, art, or music. I can’t think of any specific physical traits that would predispose someone to being good – or better than their peers – at what we...
Reasons *NOT* To Blast Before Powder Coating
Nine times out of ten, I recommend blasting parts before powder coating them. I’ve blogged extensively about this in the past, and won’t reiterate my pro-blasting arguments here. Instead, I want to talk about the occasions when blasting may not be advisable. They’re...
Why I’m So Uptight about Scheduling
It’s no secret: I’m uptight about the powder coating production schedule. Customers are often baffled by this. In their minds, batching one lawn chair in with a larger run of parts should be no big deal – and to a certain extent, that’s true. But there are...
How To Help (And How Not To Help) Your Powder Coater
It’s no secret: lead times are long. They’re unusually long at Kaser, and from what I can tell, we’re not alone. Mostly, it’s beyond anyone’s control. I can’t solve global hiring and supply chain issues. That being said, there are a few things that customers should...
What Not To Do in the Powder Booth
Two powder coating operators walk into the booth at the same time. They’re spraying identical parts with identical equipment, using powder from the same box. Even their gun settings match. Why do their parts come out looking so different? It turns out that powder...
Good Powder Coating vs. Great Powder Coating: How To Lay The Right Foundation
My life would be a lot simpler if the quality of the powder I purchased correlated directly with the quality of the coatings I produced. But alas. To be clear, investing in high-quality powder is helpful. However, the best powder on the market can easily look...
A Tale of 32 Colors: Why We Stick With Our Stock
Once upon a time, I used to let customers flip through vast powder coating color decks and choose whatever they wanted. I no longer do that. Instead, I’ve narrowed Kaser’s selection down to 32 stock colors, and (almost) everyone is much happier. Here’s why. These...
Powder Coating: A Homeowner’s Guide
Powder coating is a durable and cost-effective solution for refinishing everything from vent covers to lawn furniture, but it comes with some caveats. Here’s what homeowners need to know. Know the limits of durability. When I say that powder coating is more durable...
Introduction to Hanging Parts for Powder Coating
Assuming no previous finishing industry experience, all of my new hires start off learning the same thing: how to hang metal parts on carts. Hanging parts is not as simple as it sounds. A lot can go wrong, resulting in serious injuries, inadequate pretreatment, and...
Ground Rules for the Wash Bay
I’ve blogged extensively about Kaser’s pretreatment processes and the chemicals we use on steel and aluminum. Now, it’s time to address the ground rules of the wash bay. Wear PPE. While the chemicals we use are at relatively low concentrations (meaning they won’t...
Introduction to Powder Coating
Powder coating can - and, I believe, should - be learned on the job. Experience is the best teacher: you’ll learn far more through trial and error than you could from a book. That being said, here are some helpful ground rules to get you started. Wear your PPE. There...
Interviewing 101: Tips from the Hiring Manager
If an exceptional person expresses interest in working at Kaser, I always want them on my team. As a result, I conduct interviews year-round. Here’s my advice to job candidates who want to level up their interview game. Be forthcoming. I suspect people want to avoid...
Stop Breaking Your Own Heart: Five Mistakes Most Powder Coaters Make
Powder coaters, I have a spooky truth for you this Halloween season: the call is most likely coming from inside the house. In other words, as much as we’d like to blame the powder, the weather, or even the part itself, we are frequently the architects of our own...
Enough Already: Please Stop Doing This to my Female Employees
Men in the finishing industry – customers, vendors, and sales reps alike – respond to my female employees differently than they respond to me. This is a longstanding issue that has always driven me nuts. I’ve had a lot of women on my team over the years, of various...
Cracking Open the Can of Worms: Choices We Face When Shopping for Powder
Powder coating is not a monolith. Instead, it’s a can of worms. A rabbit-hole. A never-ending smorgasbord of colors, textures, gloss levels, chemistries, additives, and applications. When you start to dig into the options, you’ll find that they’re (almost literally)...
This One’s For the Newbies: Advice from a Veteran Powder Coater
Aspiring powder coaters who consume a lot of social media content, this one's for you. Before any of us had wash bays, outbuildings, and multi-step processes, we were one- or two-person operations with a can of MEK and a dream…and we were still putting out coatings....
Hanging Parts: A New Powder Coater’s Guide
Hanging parts is often perceived as grunt work. On some level, it is – it’s manual labor that involves a significant amount of lifting, no matter the type of shop. However, good hanging requires far more skill than most people expect, particularly in a shop that...
Powder vs. Liquid Coating: A Nuanced Discussion
The powder vs. liquid coating conversation has been going on a long time. Experts have picked sides and spilled ink on the subject for decades, but customers remain confused. I get asked all the time which is better. While I am partial to powder coating because it has...
How to be Properly Paranoid about the Quality of your Supplied Air
It would be so easy for abrasive media blasters to purchase a top-of-the-line supplied air helmet, succumb to a false sense of security, and never give their air supply another thought. I suspect this happens a lot. To be clear, I do recommend investing in a supplied...
What New Hires Don’t Know About Working at Kaser
I will be candid: new hires would be shocked to learn how quickly – and unanimously – the Kaser team can tell whether they’re a good fit. I’m not saying this to scare potential employees away. On the contrary, I think Kaser’s culture is one of our great strengths, and...
When Your Best Friend Wants To Hurt You: Staying Safe around MEK
Methyl ethyl ketone – also known as MEK – is easily the most dangerous chemical we encounter in the powder coating shop. And we encounter it a lot. MEK does a great job of removing tough grease, adhesive residue, Sharpie ink - it cuts through almost anything, quickly...
Don’t Let Tik Tok Trick You: Respirators Aren’t Negotiable
Social media is a blessing and a curse for the finishing industry. On one hand, it’s an effective way to spread awareness about a line of work that’s poorly represented in trade schools; on the other, bad habits and misinformation – on any topic – seem far more...
Fun Facts About Substrates Other Than Steel
I could talk about steel for days, and I have. That’s partially because Kaser blasts & coats a lot of steel, but it’s also because steel lends itself well to social media content: it’s quick and rewarding to blast, it turns interesting colors after pretreatment,...
Why Expediting Is Harder than It Sounds
Frustration is almost always the result of unmet expectations. It’s no wonder, then, that customers get frustrated with Kaser’s inability to expedite projects. In their minds, it takes no time at all to throw a single part up on a cart and spray it. While they may...
Managers, Are You Communicating Too Much?
I used to be very transparent with my team about customers’ expectations for their projects. Let’s say the customer was demanding, or the spec was unusually rigorous, or the deadline was urgent – I communicated all of that to my team, thinking that the extra...
The Three Cardinal Rules of Powder Storage
Here’s a fun industry fact that most customers don’t consider: coatings that are not actively being sprayed must be stored. This presents a spectrum of challenges for a small business like mine. On the high-maintenance side, we have liquid coatings, which are...
Quality Control for Busy Powder Coaters
In a perfect world, the Kaser team would perform quality control at every step of the powder coating process, every day. Hanging, pretreatment, spraying, curing, and packaging – mistakes can (and do) occur at each of these stages, impacting the quality of the finished...
My Latest (And Final?) Hiring Epiphany
I’ve recently evolved into what I think will be my final form as a hiring manager. Here’s what I mean. When I first started at Kaser, there were three of us: Stan in the blast booth, Chauncey in powder, and myself. Collectively, we had little experience in the...
3 Questions to Determine Whether Blasting is Necessary
Customers sometimes ask me to quote powder coating projects with and without blasting, so they can compare pricing. I’ll spoil it for you: most of the time, blasting before powder coating doubles the cost of the project. Understandably, that gives some customers...
Fewer Options Means Less Yelling: A Lesson in Stock Colors
Humans think they want choices, but they don’t. Exhibit A: powder coating colors. Kaser stocks 24 different powder coating options. They’re all affordable, high-quality products in a range of popular colors, textures, and glosses. Most customers are very happy with...
Three Myths I Used to Believe about Part Time Workers
If you had asked me last spring whether I’d consider hiring part time help at Kaser, I would have laughed and said “absolutely not.” One year later, I’m singing a different tune. I realized that if the hiring landscape wasn’t going to change, I needed to. Full time...
I Just Raised my Bar. Here’s Why.
I’ve never been the type to hire a warm body. Even in times when Kaser could’ve desperately used another set of hands, I’ve proceeded cautiously. There’s too much at stake: the team’s camaraderie, the quality of Kaser’s product, the amount of time it takes to train...
The 2020 Miscalculation That Haunts Me Two Years Later
I recently realized that I’ve spent the last 18 months mis-categorizing Kaser’s busy-ness. I thought we had a staffing issue, and that hiring more people would take care of it; but the more I hired, the more the workload stayed the same. Turns out we were just coating...
Life as a Liquid Coater
The powder coating shop is Kaser’s engine room: hot, busy, and largely responsible for driving the whole business forward. The liquid coating booth is Kaser’s sail: quieter overall with long stretches of downtime, but always ready to catch a big gust. While the powder...
Introducing Lincoln’s Yellow Garage
Downtown Lincoln is stepping up its parking game, and Kaser is involved. Haymarket visitors will likely be familiar with the red, blue, and green parking garages. What they may not realize is that long ago, when I was still in college, Kaser Painting, Inc, painted the...
Settlers, Breweries, and Welding: A Nebraska Story
In 1904, settlers could purchase 640 acres of land in Western Nebraska for $14. This was known as the Kinkaid Act, and the settlers in question were called Kinkaiders. Fast forward to late 2021. Kinkaider Brewery, a beloved fixture in Nebraska’s microbrew landscape,...
Let’s Talk About Raises
I have spent very little time as someone else’s employee. There was one research opportunity in college, where I worked for a professor – and my dad retained a lot of the decision-making power in my early days at Kaser, before I was comfortable handling daily...
Day One at Powder Coating University
The Kaser team is growing rapidly. My managers and I feel a bit like professors, guiding a fresh batch of recruits through Powder Coating 101 every few weeks or so. This is not a complaint. Yes, training is hard, but the benefits of having a full crew far outweigh the...
What To Do With Talented People
Once a year or so, I hire someone with the uncanny ability to handle any and all tasks that Kaser throws at them. It’s rare, but always exciting. Some people seem to have a knack for producing higher-than-average quality, no matter what task they’re given. For lack of...
Kaser’s Workplace Culture: What Candidates Need to Know
Some of the job candidates I interview ask about Kaser’s workplace culture but, to my surprise, most don’t. I guess it’s hard from an interviewee’s perspective – what questions do you ask to really get the info you want? Does the hiring manager know anything about the...
What To Expect as a New Hire in the Powder Shop
Anyone who follows Kaser Blasting & Coatings on social media knows that I’ve had two mantras on repeat this year: 1. The Kaser powder shop is ALWAYS hiring; and 2. No experience required. So what can a new powder shop employee expect if they have no previous...
High Risk, High Reward: What to Expect When Managing A Lean Team
Kaser Blasting & Coatings finds itself in a strange position these days. On one hand, I’ve been hiring like crazy and the team is bigger than it has ever been; on the other hand, our incoming workload is through the roof. We’re running out of space to store parts,...
A Day in the Life of the Kaser Blast Booth
Kaser’s blast shop gets less social media attention than the powder shop. That’s not a reflection of how much I value the work; it’s simply that the powder shop is twice as busy and much safer to document, because there’s no blast media flying around. As a result, I’m...
What I Need from a Forklift Operator
Of all the jobs at Kaser, none is more misunderstood than the Shipping & Receiving/Forklift Operator position. I’m certain there are tons of large companies whose forklift drivers do nothing else. They sit down in the morning, move pallets around all day, and...
Your Perfectionism Might Be Lying To You
My name is Jase Kaser, and I’m a perfectionist. Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it’s a trait I really value in myself and others. For starters, I think my pursuit of perfection benefits Kaser’s customers – they’ve come to expect great quality, and all of our...
What You’ve Always Wanted to Ask about Working at Kaser
Kaser Blasting & Coatings is always hiring. Our job posts, while abundant, don’t always get into the nitty-gritty details of what we offer. So if you’ve ever wondered about compensation, benefits, and time off, here’s what you need to know. Compensation Kaser does...
Three Tough Questions to Ask Yourself About Safety
None of us will ever achieve a 100% effective, all-encompassing, fool-proof safety program with total adherence. It’s not possible. As managers, our best shot at keeping our teams safe is to commit to progress. Our safety programs are an exercise routine, and we’re...
Three Reasons I Don’t Need an Automated Line
Kaser Blasting & Coatings employs a batch booth setup, instead of an automated line. Honestly, that’s been a point of contention for more than one prospective client. Several large manufacturers have declined to give us their business because we don’t have a line....
3 Common Causes of Rework (And What to Do About Them)
We live in a world of dirt, oil, and human error. As finishers, it’s good to acknowledge these realities. The sooner we embrace the inevitability of rework, the sooner we can get to problem-solving. Here are the three most common rework scenarios I see at Kaser, and...
Making Small Talk on Big Subjects: The Finisher’s Dilemma
Scenario: I’m in a situation that calls for small talk with a stranger (i.e., getting a haircut, sitting in an Uber, or meeting someone for the first time). They ask me what I do for a living. I pause to weigh my options. Option 1: tell them I’m a coater and leave it...
Paint Gets No Respect
Firetrucks are large, complex pieces of machinery designed to do life-saving work under brutal conditions. But the first – and possibly only – thing that the average person will ever really notice about them is that they’re red. Coatings matter. And while those of us...
The Three Rules of Selling to a Millennial
When I first started at Kaser, I was ordering a box of powder coating every two weeks. Now, I’m averaging ten boxes of powder coating a day. There are a number of vendors I’ve stuck with through all of this growth – reliable, high-quality suppliers who’ve earned my...
You Might Be A Powder Coater (Who Just Doesn’t Know It Yet)
I’ve been hiring long enough to know that the world is full of people whose skills would be valuable in the powder booth…if only they knew that powder coating existed. But they don’t. The more I think about the hordes of mechanically-inclined folks graduating from...
All This Ambition And Nowhere to Put It
My name is Jase Kaser, and I’m aggressive. When I say “aggressive,” I mean I’m ambitious. I’m risky. I like to push the production schedule to its limits. I like to get results when no one else can. That’s my brand, and it’s the Kaser brand – we take on projects that...
Why Washing Steel Isn’t Enough
If you see a piece of raw steel that isn’t actively rusting, that can only mean one of two things: it’s either covered in oil, or there’s a conversion coating on it. Folks who don’t work with metal may not realize just how oily raw steel can be. Greases and oils can...
You Think You Love Powder Coating…But You’re Wrong
Anytime a customer expresses satisfaction with our coatings, what they’re really happy about is our surface prep. They just don’t know it yet. We’re called Kaser Blasting & Coatings because “Kaser Sanding & Pretreatment” doesn’t really have the same ring. But...
“So When Are You Getting Married” and Other Questions From My Mother
Shari Kaser, Vice President of Kaser Painting, Inc and my mother, had some questions for me on episode 13 of KaserCast. Spoiler alert: most of them were not work related. In case you missed the episode, I put some of the highlights in writing. Take a peek behind the...
Safety Green Flags: Three Signs You’re Doing Something Right
Creating and maintaining a nuanced and effective safety program is hard, no matter what. And if you’re a small business struggling to find good help in a pandemic landscape, staying OSHA-compliant can feel like an unscalable mountain. I’m going to assume that we all...
What Rain REALLY Does to Your Parts
I might be the only person in Nebraska who hasn’t been happy about all of the rain lately. I’ve talked before about how rain causes chaos on the Kaser campus, as we scramble to get vulnerable parts indoors – but it recently occurred to me that the average person might...
Two Things I Want (And One Thing I Don’t)
Believe it or not, I’m not looking to hire expert powder coaters. I’m not even necessarily looking for finishing industry experience. I’m not interested in college degrees, trade school educations, or whether a candidate has ever held a pressure washer. I’ve learned...
What Nobody Told You About Being “More Than Just a Number”
You would be shocked at the number of job candidates I’ve interviewed over the years. Yes, Kaser is small, but we’re never not hiring – and since the pandemic started, we, like everyone else, are desperate for good help. I ask every prospective employee what they’re...
Four Harsh Truths about Transit
If you work in the finishing industry, I have news for you: customers care a lot less about how good the part looks coming out of the oven, than how it looks when they receive it. In other words, the damage that happens in transit reflects poorly on the powder...
Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before Yelling
Kaser recently had a bad production day. We’d been firing on all cylinders for weeks, churning out great work in record time through our busiest season. Then on a single day, we fell behind on a handful of projects. Customers weren’t happy, and neither was I. I...
Your Safety Depends on You: How to Enjoy A Long Career as a Powder Coater
No matter the industry, safety boils down to the habits you form. Kaser’s safety program has evolved over the years. We’ve gone from a single employee to a team of twelve. As the workload grows, so do the risks; but no matter how sophisticated the safety protocols...
Why We Choose Powder Coating over Liquid Coating
I suspect general public customers are partial to liquid coating because they imagine they could do it themselves. The concept is familiar: they’ve used spray paint, latex paint, even acrylic paint - how different could industrial coating really be? So they push me...
It’s Pretty, But Will It Last?
A lot of people approach shopping for industrial coatings as though they were buying their metal parts a makeover. While there’s nothing wrong with prioritizing aesthetics, there’s so much more to be gained from the coating process if you know how to ask for it. I’m...
Patio Furniture Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Metal patio furniture tends to be the general public’s gateway into the world of industrial coatings. This is particularly true in Nebraska, where harsh winters, hot summers, and constant humidity takes a greater-than-average toll on outdoor tables and chairs....
Cross Training the Smart Way
It’s a classic rock-and-a-hard-place scenario: on one hand, having a lean staff and a busy production schedule makes it hard to cross train employees. On the other, what if someone calls in sick? Having a lean staff and a busy production schedule means you can’t...
How to Get an Accurate Quote for your Car Restoration
Car restoration projects are like snowflakes. No two are alike. The car’s make, its age, its condition, and the restorer’s knowledge, skill level, and vision - all of these variables impact the project’s cost, workload, and timeline in (often unexpected) ways. It...
The Cost of Refinishing Aluminum Wheels
It’s a fact that I don’t relish sharing: aluminum wheels are more expensive to blast and powder coat than steel wheels. Customers who don’t understand the discrepancy will likely be frustrated by it. Let me assure you that our pricing is not arbitrary. There’s a...
Hot Tips for Oven Health
A powder coater’s oven is both their strength and their weakness. Kaser’s large oven is 12’ tall x 14’ wide x 30’ long. It’s essentially a whole room made of thick, insulated panels and a 2.5 million BTU burn box on top, which puts out a significant, gas-powered...
Hot Topics in 2021: Ceramic Coating, E-Coating, and Hydro Dipping
Based on the number of inquiries I receive, it seems that ceramic coating, e-coating, and hydro dipping are having a moment. So here it is: everything I know about each of these services, and why they aren’t currently available at Kaser. Ceramic coating Ceramic...
Four Steps to Superior Quality Control on a Small Business Budget
If you can’t afford to hire a team of lab-coated quality control experts to nit-pick every part and scare your team into process compliance, you’re not alone – neither can I. But that’s ok, because we don’t need them. Here are four simple steps to achieving excellent...
Hurry Up and Wait: How 2021 is Making Deadlines Difficult
Thanks in equal parts to caution and luck, Kaser Blasting & Coatings made it through Covid unscathed. But 2021 has brought us face to face with an even more disruptive reality: we can’t coat parts that don’t exist. The majority of our customers are metal...
Storms, Stress, and Surprises: Why Nebraska Isn’t So Boring After All
People say that Nebraska is boring. It's a fair assessment if you’ve only experienced the straight, flat, corn-bordered interstate stretching interminably between you and a more desirable destination. But I will say this in defense of my home state: there is nothing...
Let’s Talk About What You See on Instagram.
Search #powdercoating on Instagram, and you’ll see hot pink wheels with contrasting inlays, metallic powders layered like galaxies, and neon green car parts with clear coat so thick you could get lost in it. It’s beautiful. It’s also very niche. Most people don’t...
Stick to the Spec: Why you Don’t Want to Gamble with Film Thickness
There’s no such thing as a universal standard for optimal film thickness. Everything depends upon the part’s application – its environment, its workload, and the coating’s role therein. There’s also no easy way to play it safe. Defaulting to more film thickness won’t...
It’s Never Been Easier to be Exceptional
I will be honest: it’s been a discouraging week, for reasons I’ll explain momentarily. But my loss is your gain, because the struggle has served to crystallize a truth so simple, so universal, and so revolutionary, that I can confidently offer you THE secret to...
Dump Trailers and Growing Pains
Some types of growth are eminently measurable. Financial growth? Check the statement. Physical growth? The tape measure will tell you what you need to know. Other types of growth are open to interpretation. How do you tell, for instance, whether you’re more skilled...
IT Advice from a Self-Taught Enthusiast
Ask any small business employee what IT support looks like at their office, and they’ll probably shrug and tell you that they just go to That One Person from [insert any department here] Who Knows About Computers. At Kaser, I’m that That One Person. I don’t mind – in...
Say It, Don’t Spray It: The Case for Filter Maintenance
No powder coater in their right mind would take a freshly-blasted piece of steel and dunk it in water. Why not? Because ferrous substrates are particularly prone to rusting after they’ve been blasted…and if there’s one thing the finishing industry hates, it’s rust....
Setting Up your Air Supply
Compressed air powers most of what we do at Kaser. There could be no blasting, no blowing off, and no spraying powder - or paint - without it. Because it’s both invisible and baked into all of our processes, it'd be easy to take air for granted. If it’s been a while...
You’re Grounded. (Hopefully.)
In powder coating as in life, we should aspire to be well grounded. The good news is that, at least in the powder booth, proper grounding is easy to achieve. Please note that the following advice comes from someone whose powder coating experience revolves solely...
Three Signs your Part’s not Properly Grounded
I would wager that most career powder coaters are not physicists. I certainly am not. And yet, success in our occupation relies upon our ability to understand - and harness - certain electrostatic phenomena, including the all-important concept of grounding. Failure...
If You’re Learning, You’re Winning: The Limits of DIY
Odds are high that if you’re an entrepreneur, you enjoy problem-solving. Odds are also high that if you manage a production schedule, you’ll do just about anything to keep it on track. I have a foot in each of those camps: I’m part problem-solving junkie, part...
The Bad Kind of Blooming: Jase’s Search for Answers
If the word “blooming” evokes happy thoughts of springtime and flowers, congratulations – you’re normal. If the word “blooming” triggers feelings of frustration and a deep-seated fear of rework, then you (like me) are probably a powder coater. I would venture to guess...
The Pursuit of Smoothness
Shortcuts and work-arounds are lifesavers for busy powder coating job shops. Anytime I can cap threads instead of painstakingly masking them with tape, for instance, I consider that a victory – it’s a time-saver that does not negatively impact the end product. There...
Got Kerf? Here’s Why.
Busy powder coaters will agree: silicone plugs are life-savers. They’re the quickest, most fool-proof way to ensure that blast media and powder coating stay out of vulnerable, threaded areas, and they’re reusable to boot. Like any other tool in your shop, though,...
Quotes Notes: Things your Shop Can’t Do for You.
I’ve been quoting projects like crazy, lately, and I find myself writing the same notes over and over. That usually means it’s time for a blog post. General public customers, this one’s for you: here’s everything your blasting & coating shop can’t do. My note:...
Friability is your Friend: Demystifying Blast Media
I’m a Mechanical Engineer who gets excited about material properties, and today, I’m sharing one of my favorite words: friability. Friability measures how well a piece of material holds up under duress. All solid substances in the world experience friability, to...
A Crash Course in Corrosion
As far as Kaser Blasting & Coatings is concerned, corrosion is Public Enemy #1. All of our services – blasting, pretreatment, coating, packaging – have the same end goal: keep corrosion at bay for as long as humanly possible. In the grand scheme, it’s a losing...
“So What Do You Do, Exactly?”
I spend so much time around the Kaser team (and interacting with fellow industry professionals on social media), that I have to pause when I hear “so what do you do?” from someone in a public setting. If I say the words “blasting, powder coating, and liquid coating”...
Recruit, Rethink, and Retain: Three Steps to Building your Dream Team
As a kid, did you dream of spraying powder coating when you grew up? No? Me neither. If we had followed our passions, we’d all be ballerinas, race car drivers, and quarterbacks. With all due respect to the finishing industry, it doesn’t tend to attract candidates...
Honestly, It’s Not for Everyone: Projects I’m Proud of in Lincoln, NE
One of the biggest perks of running a finishing business in a (relatively) small town has to be seeing my team’s work everywhere, every day. Lincoln, NE, has a population of 280,000. Kaser Blasting & Coatings has been blasting and powder coating for 7 years. It...
The Two Rules of Delegation
The concept of delegation is fairly simple: handing a task over to another person should, in theory, lighten your load while giving them a project to which they’re suited. On paper, delegation is a win-win. A lot tends to go wrong in practice, however. If you’ve ever...
The Case for Creating a Playbook
Time is a scarce and precious resource for small business owners and managers. I get it – there aren’t enough hours in the day, and you have to be judicious about how you allocate them. That’s why a lot of small businesses don’t have a training book. It takes time to...
Life Advice from a Brain Ninja
Shari Kaser is a lot of things: she’s an accountant, a UNL grad, and a founding member of Kaser Painting, Inc. She’s also my mom, and, as the rest of my family will attest, a skilled brain ninja (more on that nickname in a moment). I sat down recently to interview...
2020 in the Rearview: One Small Business’s Journey through Unprecedented Times
This year has been the ultimate test of Kaser Blasting & Coatings’ agility. I say this with a great deal of sobriety, knowing that 2020 was exceptionally fatal to both humans and businesses. This holiday season (more than any other in my lifetime) has a certain...
What Sports Fans Already Know about Management
Managers, it’s time to face facts: we will never manage a whole crew of Michael Jordans. Not everyone we hire will be the Tom Brady of our industry. It’s unlikely that you will ever discover (much less successfully recruit) the Wayne Gretzky of powder coating. And...
Cross-Examining Crosslinkers
American powder coaters: it’s time for us to get acquainted with our crosslinkers. The crosslinker is responsible for causing polymer chains to link during the curing process. In other words, it’s the chemical agent that transforms the grainy powder we spray into the...
Fail Friday: How a Perfect Coating Might Still be All Wrong
Imagine for a moment that you’re a powder coater. You manage a well-regarded, family-owned blasting and coating business in Lincoln, NE. One day, a customer drops off two signs (that look very similar to one another), and asks you to powder coat one in blue and one in...
The Three Pillars of Pretreatment
Good powder coating does not exist in a vacuum. It’s not enough to simply purchase the best powder on the market, and ask the most skilled powder coater in the world to apply it – not if you want your coating to last. High-quality powder and skilled application are...
Don’t Miss Jase’s Appearance on the RossKote Podcast!
The Road is Rougher than you Think
Anyone new to the world of powder coating needs to internalize one fundamental truth: yes, powder coating is durable…but it is not indestructible. If you repeatedly hit a powder coated surface with a hammer, it will eventually chip. This may come as a sad revelation...
Unfixable Flaws and How to Avoid Them
True or false: there’s no need to package parts before sending them to the finishing shop, because any damage caused in transit will be invisible after blasting and coating? False. While most people understand that freshly-applied powder coating needs to be babied on...
Every Little Thing Matters
This is a sad story about mistakes made, lessons learned, and rework. To set the scene: it’s late summer at Kaser Blasting & Coatings. A set of parts arrives, the likes of which we’ve coated many times before. It is, by all appearances, a regular Tuesday. The...
Keeping the Schedule Train on Track
I’ve said it before: scheduling your part’s blasting and coating well ahead of time is a great way to keep turnarounds short. With proper scheduling, (and depending on the size and scope of the project,) we can usually get parts blasted, coated, and back in your hands...
The Three Rules of Training
We all reach points in our careers where certain aspects of our jobs become ingrained in our instincts and muscle memory. For powder coaters, industry lingo becomes second nature. We become comfortable identifying substrates, and predicting how they’ll behave. We can...
Busting the Myth of Self-Direction
To the casual observer walking by Kaser’s campus on a weekday, our operations look like a buzzing hive of freight trucks, forklifts, and carts. The intensity level ranges from “moderate flurry” to “fog of war,” but one thing remains constant: from 7 AM to 4 PM, Kaser...
Moving Past Yelling: A Manager’s Evolution
If you haven’t been around a college student lately, you’ll perhaps have forgotten how very young they are, and how little real-life work experience they have. That certainly was the case for me, as a freshly-graduated college student taking a manager position at...
Scheduling Backward Instead of Forward
A textbook might describe the metal manufacturing process this way: a customer has an idea for a metal part they want made. They find a fabricator, who comes up with some drawings. Once the design is approved, the part is made. If the fabricator provides in-house...
Heat, Sweat, and Soreness: Summer Powder Coating Problems
Imagine the hottest day of a Nebraska summer. Now add ten degrees to the temperature. Now picture yourself wearing full-body personal protective equipment and a respirator, while pushing large metal parts around on carts. That’s a normal August day in the life of a...
What’s in a Lead Time?
What do urgent care and the fire department have in common? Their lead times could be a matter of life or death. If you’re calling an emergency locksmith because your toddler is stuck in a hot car, you’re going to want that service provided as quickly as humanly...
No Need to Panic: A Tale of Rust Streaking
I got a call the other day from a Kaser client with a question worth blogging about. The client is a retirement community, for whom we had powder coated quite a bit of railing five years prior, all in white. If that raises red flags, it should: I’ve blogged before...
Treat Yourself to Proper Pretreatment
Pretreatment is neither the most visible nor the most glamorous part of the coating process. It doesn’t involve color, it doesn’t photograph well, and it makes for less-than-ideal social media content. It’s no wonder, then, that most customers don’t prioritize...
The Secret Kaser Family Packaging Recipe
True or false: the back of a truck (pickup truck, air-ride-equipped semi, or any model in between) rides as smoothly as the cab of said truck? False with a capital F and an exclamation point. While suspension has improved over the years, the back of any truck will...
Getting Wheel Specific
Today, we’re tackling another one of Kaser’s all-time FAQs: “how much will it cost to blast and powder coat my car’s wheels?” The short answer is, “it depends.” While I’m more than happy to give a quote over the phone or email, there are 3 questions I will need...
It’s Time to Talk about Cc
I’m taking a break from blogging about niche, coating-related issues in favor of a much more universal topic: the humble workplace email. Email users, assemble. It’s time we have a frank conversation about the Cc function. Let’s begin with a definition: Cc stands for...
Shop For Powder Like A Pro
Good shopping means asking the right questions. This is true for just about anything money can buy, and powder coating is no exception. I’m not talking about the powder coating service, this time. I’m talking about the powder itself. No matter who you choose as your...
Sales: Work Smarter, Not Harder.
Imagine for a moment that ABC Powder Supplier and XYZ Powder Supplier are two companies that offer the exact same powder, of the exact same quality, at the exact same price point. Let’s take it one step further and imagine that neither company charges for shipping. In...
When Sales Reps go Rogue: A Rant
I’m a pretty positive, results-oriented person who is fortunate to work in an industry full of positive, results-oriented people. But, my fellow powder coaters, general managers, and small business owners, can we take a moment to bond over what I am sure is a shared...
The Magic of Scheduling
Is there anything more frustrating for a customer than calling a powder coating shop and being told that the lead time is 4-5 weeks? No. I get it, and I’m here to help. First, I want to reframe how we look at lead times. While a long lead time is an understandable...
What Blasting Can’t Do
Myth: blasting parts is the same as cleaning them. Fact: blasting and washing are two very different processes, with very different results, and you cannot substitute one for the other. I think social media may be (at least partly) to blame for the confusion. We’re...
Two Cents on Higher Education
I ask every single interview candidate the same question: “What is your ideal job?” This question yields a variety of answers, but there’s a common one that really bothers me. It goes something like this: “I eventually want to own my own business, but right now, I...
Love, Hate, and Process
If the words “procedure” and “process” conjure mixed emotions of rage and comfort, you’re not alone. I feel the same way. Whether as employees or consumers, we’ve all experienced corporate red tape – long chains of command, endless phone call transfers, time-consuming...
“I Don’t Know” and Other Barriers
My biggest challenge on any given day comes in the form of human communication. The most consistent, frustrating, and oddly humorous example of this happens during shipping and receiving. Some of our larger industrial customers ship parts to us via freight truck. I...
Meditation on Metallic
Humans are attracted to shiny things. I get it – metallic powder coating is mesmerizing. But before you decide that every metal part you own should glitter, allow us to provide you with a reality check: applying metallic powder coatings is an expensive exercise in...
How’s It Hanging?
“Danger” is perhaps too strong a word, but anytime you’re dealing with heavy metal parts, there’s always a risk of bodily injury. This risk is heightened a little bit every time you move the part – for instance, transporting it from the parking lot to the blasting...
Teeny Tiny Hooks for Teeny Tiny Hardware
Moving, coating, and curing large, heavy parts presents a fairly obvious set of predictable challenges for any coating shop. But what challenges do we face on the smaller end of the spectrum? More specifically, what makes coating nuts, bolts, screw heads, and other...
The Cold Call that Worked: A Hiring Parable
Small business owners, General Managers, and entrepreneurs: can I get an amen when I say that hiring is hard? If you’re like me, you: Don’t have an HR department, Do have a hand in every aspect of daily operation, and Spend your days in a blur of...
Getting what you Want: A Cautionary Tale
My two-word summary of the custom color matching process for powder coating: IT’S DIFFICULT. I blogged about this a while ago, but recent events at Kaser have reminded me that custom color matching is a loaded issue, fraught with opportunities for frustration, and...
The Trouble with White
Anyone who has spilled spaghetti sauce on a white button down, cleaned fingerprints off of a white wall, or tried to keep a white car dust-free knows: the color white tends to be higher-maintenance than most. This is true in the liquid and powder coating world as...
The Complete Package
Myth: powder coating, once cured, is indestructible. Fact: while powder coating can be designed to effectively resist weather damage, sunlight, fading, industrial solvents, and moisture, it is not bulletproof. It is not even scratch-proof. If you throw a smooth,...
Quotes and Conversation
Here’s the scenario. It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday at Kaser Blasting & Coatings, and the phone rings. I pick up. The conversation goes like this: Customer: “Hi, yes, I have a rusty patio chair that I want powder coated. Could I get a quote?” Me, thinking to myself: OK,...
Can We Handle It?
Kaser Blasting & Coatings serves both the general public and larger industrial customers, which means we frequently hear similar questions from opposite ends of the spectrum: “Can you handle projects [this large/small?]” “Are you able to blast [ten thousand...
Two Minutes of your Time
Can I rant for a minute? Anyone who owns a small business will tell you it’s not easy. There are a lot of serious, real-life reasons for that: small businesses are buffeted by the economy, the margins are often narrow, and it can be tough to attract and retain talent....
Outside the Box
We’re here to solve customers’ problems. As a blasting and coating shop, this means we’re typically solving rust and corrosion problems, and applying coatings preventively against future damage. That’s our area of expertise. But occasionally we’re asked to solve a...
See Something? Say Something.
Rework. The purpose of our quality control is to catch the surface quality issues before parts leave our facility. Say a part didn’t get pretreated properly and oil bubbles through the coating surface, or there was a pinhole in the weld that causes some outgassing, or...
Substrates: A Summary
Kaser sees quite a variety of parts come through the shop - lawn furniture, cars, steel beams and everything in between. Despite the broad diversity of the parts we handle, the majority tends to fall into one of only three substrate categories: steel, aluminum, and...
A Customer’s Guide to Powder Chemistry
We talk about powder coating in monolithic terms, but the truth is that “powder” can mean a lot of different things on the chemical level. And different powders serve different purposes. Even though powder chemistry has a significant effect on the coating’s...
Things Are Heating Up
It may seem obvious, but it bears repeating: the powder coating oven runs hot. More precisely, the powder coating oven typically reaches around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This is important, because it directly affects the types of parts we can powder coat. For instance,...
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Stay Out of the…Car Wash?
We talk a lot about the protective element of powder coating. It’s ideal for outdoor parts, for instance, because powder coating creates a barrier against the elements, protecting the part from damage. But there’s protection, and then there’s PROTECTION. Parts for...
Guns, Pistons, and Knives, Oh My!
“Can you blast sensitive parts?” Typically, when I get this question, the customer is asking about a smaller part they want cleaned – a firearm, a knife, an oily piston, or something tarnished. They don’t want the current coating (if any) removed, they just want the...
All about Air
Take it from a Mechanical Engineer: the right equipment makes all the difference in the quality of blasting and coating. This is a topic that genuinely excites me, and I wanted to share some insights I’ve developed over years of trial and error, in case they can be...
Blasting for Interior Application
It’s one of Kaser’s golden rules: outdoor parts need to be blasted before being powder coated. It’s non-negotiable for anyone who is at all concerned about the durability of their powder coating against the elements. But what about indoor parts? If they aren’t exposed...
Keep it Together, Man
Which is more expensive: powder coating one large part, or powder coating the same part that’s been broken down into several smaller pieces? I get this question all the time. Often, it’s about something like a ladder rack for a truck: ladder racks can either be welded...
Caps, Plugs and Other Saviors
Lest anyone think that masking is all about tape, I wanted to follow up my previous masking blog with a note about the non-tape masking resources we use regularly. Tape is ideal for large, flat surfaces. However, if we’re blasting a part that has threads, pins,...
Masters of Masking
Allow me to brag for a second: Kaser Blasting & Coatings has gotten really good at masking. That’s because we’ve been asked to do it a lot recently, and through trial, error, and practice, we’ve figured out what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. Since...
I’m a Manager of Entropy. Nice to Meet You.
We’re a quarter of the way through 2019, and I’ve identified my personal theme for the year: I’m a manager of entropy. I’ll explain. Occasionally, a customer will learn that I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This...
Powder Vs. Liquid Coating: A Summary
To powder coat, or to liquid coat? That is the question. Given the choice, we typically choose powder. It’s not necessarily because powder coating is more durable than liquid – you can certainly achieve durable, high-quality finish from liquid paint. Finish is not the...
Kaser, Cars, and You
I hear it a lot: “I’m restoring a car. Can you help?” The short answer is (usually) yes. Of course, “restoring a car” can mean a lot of different things, so I like to ask some questions, and make a judgment call on a case-by-case basis. For instance, if a customer...
New Year, New Wash Bay
The Kaser Blasting & Coatings compound expanded recently – we announced the new addition on Facebook a while ago, and have been using that extra square footage as some very handy storage space for equipment and parts. The storage capacity has been nice, but we’re...
An Alternative to Custom Color
I published an article a while back on the custom color matching process for powder coating. The blog was a bit long and technical, because the custom color matching process is long and technical. In case you missed it, here’s the short version: matching powder...
How Soon Can You Get It Done?
2019 has been keeping us busy. We’re very happy about that – in years past, we would occasionally experience a lull in the winter months. This hasn’t been true for quite a while. Business is booming, and we’re thrilled. Being busy comes with its own set of...
New Year, Same Mission
Happy New Year from the Kaser family! Change is inevitable, and I’m ready to embrace the growth and challenges that 2019 will bring. At the same time, I find myself hoping that certain things will stay exactly the same. In 2018, the Kaser team spent some time...
Kaser: The Origin Story
Shortly before their wedding day in 1987, Jay and Shari Kaser put up Shari’s grey Honda Prelude as collateral, took out a small business loan, and ventured into the business of residential painting. Just like that, Kaser Painting, Inc. was formed. Kaser Painting grew...
To Galvanize or Not to Galvanize
Adhesion. If you’ve been following Kaser Blasting & Coatings on social media, you know that adhesion has been the theme of 2018. Good adhesion is the foundation of a high-quality powder coating job. It’s the reason we blast: removing mill scale, rust, and old...
When Bigger Means Better
In a world obsessed with sleek, portable, pocket-sized technological advances, Kaser Blasting & Coatings is here to tell you that the old adage still occasionally rings true: sometimes, bigger is better. Over the years, we’ve built and modified our space to bring...
Making the Dream Work
‘Tis the season of reflection and gratitude. As Kaser Blasting & Coatings wraps up another stellar year, I’m grateful for so many things: our customers, new and returning, who give us a reason to come to work every day; Jay and Shari Kaser, whose vision started...
Blasting: The Kaser Difference
Last week, we talked a little bit about blasting: the process, the advantages, and its impact on the success of powder coating. A lot of shops offer blasting services. Some enthusiasts even have a blasting setup at home. What makes Kaser different? Not all blasts are...
Blasting for Best Results
Powder coating lends itself well to social media: the dramatic before-and-after shots, the vibrant colors, the gloss and texture of the part after it’s been coated – it’s all very photogenic. We love to showcase our powder coating on Facebook and Instagram because...
The Road to Custom Color
Color carries meaning. The right color can build a brand, create an atmosphere, and make a statement. It has the power to capture attention, or deflect it. Whether you’re using it as a spotlight or as camouflage, color matters. At Kaser, color is our livelihood. We...
The Power of Pretreatment
The devil is in the details. Was this idiom coined by someone who works in the powder coating industry? Unlikely – but it may as well have been. If the term “powder coating” evokes images of a dirty metal part being glossed over in a smooth and vibrant color, you’re...
