Jon Osborne is eager to expand his presence in the machining industry, but doesnt expect to make many friends among the countless machinery makers who derive much of their income from selling replacement parts.


His small Airway Heights business, Extreme Industrial Coatings Inc. (EIC), which he founded three years ago, specializes in wear control, or making parts last longer, thus postponing or negating the need to replace them.


To achieve that enhanced durability, he says, the company uses cutting-edge technologies, with names such as RocketCoat, PlasmaPlate, BoroPlate, and Flamespray.


All of the technologies are designed to combat wear caused by corrosion, impact, and other forces, and they all involve applying a protective coating of some type to parts.


My vision in launching EIC was to go above and beyond what your typical repair shop does, Osborne says. He says that his business is the only one in the Inland Northwest, to his knowledge, that specializes in industrial wear control.


The technologies that he has embraced have been used to date mostly in the big-dollar aerospace and oil-and-gas exploration industries, he says, but adds that his intent is to bring them down to the common mans level.


Though its still early, his efforts to create a market within what he regards as a mostly unexplored machining-industry niche appear to be producing results. His growing client list includes such concerns as J.R. Simplot Co., Potlatch Corp., ConAgra Foods Inc., and Teck Cominco Ltd. One of EICs customers, he says, is involved in the design of drilling equipment for the future Mars explorer, and one of the companys coatings has been specified for possible use on a major project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.


Our issue is not scaring up work, Osborne asserts. Our big issue is being able to do all the work thats coming in.


EIC occupies a 3,600-square-foot space at 11319 W. Willow Lane, in the Airways Industrial Park, on the south side of Airway Heights, and has just two part-time employees, in addition to Osborne. Despite its minimal staffing, it should reach annual revenues of $500,000 within two years and $1 million within four or five years, based on its current growth rate, Osborne says.


The business is nearing a point where it will need to seek outside investment capital to fund further growth, and Osborne says, Were knee-deep in putting together an investment plan that would be workable.


Teaching employees to apply EICs super-tough coatings to a range of industrial parts is time-consuming, he says, adding, My goal is to build a large, self-sustaining team that frankly doesnt need me on a day-to-day basis. That would give him more time, he says, to work on growing the company.


The general problem of wear is huge in the industrial world, Osborne says, citing estimates by the American Society of Materials that corrosion-related costs alone equal 2 percent of the worlds gross product.


That doesnt address abrasion, erosion, or impact, all of which also are very expensive for industry, he says.


The biggest share of those costs comes not from buying replacement parts, but rather from lost productivity due to reduced equipment efficiency and equipment downtime while parts are being replaced or repaired. Many equipment makers have little incentive to improve the wearability of parts, though, because they find it easier and more lucrative to sell replacement parts, Osborne asserts.


Convincing end users of industrial equipment that theres a potentially cost-saving alternative is one of Osbornes challenges.


A lot of what I do with my customers is educate them, he says. Most people have never heard of the technologies we work with.


One of those technologies, called RocketCoat, uses what basically is a tiny rocket engine, generating exhaust gases moving at 10 times the speed of sound, to impact fuse tungsten carbide dust into the surface of metal parts, Osborne says. He claims that the coating produced by the process is 50 times more abrasion-resistant than steel.


The rocket engine is housed in a handheld applicator that looks like a high-tech auto paint sprayer on steroids, but that Osborne declines to even have photographed because of its proprietary features that he devised. EIC has used the technology to strengthen parts such as fans and pump impellers. Ignited with an acetylene torch, the rocket-engine gun is loudaround 150 decibels, Osborne saysrequiring everyone nearby to wear ear protection.


A related process, called RocketFuse, also applies a tungsten-carbide coating, but does so with heat, rather than through high-velocity impact.


PlasmaPlate uses a 36,000-degree plasma process to apply tungsten-carbide welds over areas of parts that are subject to extreme wear, such as the tips of the big teeth on log loaders. Osborne claims that a one-quarter-inch-thick coating of that material is as resistant to abrasion as a one-foot-thick steel plate.


It gives you the most abrasion-resistant coating in the world, he asserts.


BoroPlate is a process that Osborne says originated in the nuclear industry and that involves welding onto parts boron carbide, which he calls the third-hardest material known to man.


Flamespray involves the use of a high-energy torch system to coat new and worn parts with metallic and ceramic coatings.


Having parts coated using one of the technologies that EIC offers isnt cheap, in some cases costing more than the part itself, but increased durability typically produces cost savingssometimes huge savingsthat more than offset the expense, Osborne says.


In many cases, the coatings will probably never wear out, and the coated parts will outlast the machines theyre on, he says.


Still, he says, A lot of what we do, for better or worse, is a form of R&D. You dont learn this business at the local community college.


Each job requires study and engineering, he says, because, We have to understand what the wear mechanisms are to engineer the proper coating. That mindset is expressed even on his business card, which lists him as wear control engineer, rather than as owner or president of the company.


Originally from Pennsylvania, Osborne earned a bachelors degree in chemistry at Eastern University, in St. Davids, Pa., and became familiar with the Spokane area while serving in the U.S. Air Force at Fairchild Air Force Base in the early 1990s. After spending a couple of years in sales and marketing jobs, he took a job here at Johnson Matthey Electronics, now Honeywell Electronic Materials Inc., as a metallography technician, doing physical evaluations of metal samples.


That was my introduction to the field of metallurgy, he says.


In 1997, he became part owner of Specialty Machining & Manufacturing Co., a welding job shop here. He started EIC on the side six years later and sold his interest in Specialty Machinery in 2005 so he could focus all his attention on the wear-control enterprise.


Ive been absolutely buried ever since, he says.


The EIC shop, located in an unmarked building at the end of a dirt road in the small Airway Heights industrial park, looks like most other machine shops at first glance, until Osborne begins pointing out devices used to apply the specialized coatings.


A part of the shop also is set up like an exhibit area, where he displays sample parts and photos to show how some of his customers have benefited from the technologies he offers.


The parts that EIC coats range in size from less than 2 inches long to 5-foot-diameter material-handling fans. In some cases we will do one piece, Osborne says, but he adds that the charge for applying the coatings makes it more cost-efficient for customers to include multiple pieces in a job order. That charge starts at $200 a pound and goes up from there, based on the geometry of the parts, which affects the difficulty of the job.


We have done hundreds of parts at a time, he says.


EIC caters mostly to equipment users in the mining, pulp-and-paper manufacturing, oil-and-gas exploration, food-processing, seed-processing, farming, forestry, and cement industries. Its customers are located mostly in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and California, but Osborne says he hopes to expand the companys geographical reach.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at [email protected].