A Luster Metal Finishing, Kansas City completes its 30th year of zinc plating

Mid-America Commerce & Industry, Jan 1995

Anyone that's been involved with metal finishing in the last 20 years, knows that environmental regulations have had a major impact on the way platers, painters and coaters do business. The huge expense of meeting continually tighter standards has made the survivors, not only more compatible with the environment, but more efficient and productive for their customers.

A Luster Metal Finishing, Kansas City, Missouri, is an excellent example of a company that has adapted to these changes with vigor and taken full advantage of the need for higher quality and longer lasting finishes.

Last May, A Luster Metal Finishing received one of the first Gold Award certificates from the State of Missouri for compliance with Federal and local EPA standards. "We not only met all pretreatment regulatory requirements, but exceeded them ... in all instances," says Charles "Chuck" Brady, president.

The City of Kansas City, Missouri, Water & Pollution Control De-partment rated A Luster as the best of all industrial users that have effluent going into the city's sewers. "This is a very special award for us since the plating has been thought of as a major polluter of the environment, Brady said.

"We are one of the few closed-loop pretreatment operations in the area. To keep the zinc and other toxic chemicals out of the waste stream, the water baths used to rinse plated parts have their own sewer line. The plant's sewage system can't become contaminated.

"We also use counter flowing rinse tanks, evaporation, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis to remove metals and other contaminants. Then the rinse cycle starts over with none of the contaminants going into the sewer. The cleaning rinses are sent to a clarifier and with pH adjustment and final filtration before going into the sewer.

Brady said they are very sparing in the use of water, consuming less than 10,000 gallons a day. "There are no secrets. We don't do anything other people couldn't do."

A Luster Metal Finishing is located at 1019 West 24th Street in a 22,000-square-foot plant. Its three plating lines include a 16-tank, semiautomatic zinc line; a black oxide department and a special "hands-on" line for small quantities and delicate parts. More specifically these lines offer:

Zinc plating/electro-galvanizing: rack and barrel; all chromates (bright blue, gold irridite and black chromate); and lacquering

Black oxide

Pickle and Oil

Burnishing

Electro-Polishing (stainless steel 300 and 400 series)

Passivating (stainless steel 300 and 400 series)

Vibra-Dyne polishing

Aluminum-golden chromate (irridite), clear chromatie (irridite) and etching.

Rafael M. Garcia, Jr., is vice president of production. "I'll observe my 40th year in the metal finishing business this May," he told us. "The front part of this building is nearly 100 years old. When the plating company was established in 1964, an addition at the back was completed. Eventually the old wooden floors and beams were replaced with concrete and steel."

Today, the auto industry is A Luster's biggest customer (one item they finish is a lever used in GM's Geo), followed by the computer industry. Among the old-time clients is Johnson Food Equipment, a manufacturer of poultry processing and flour milling equipment. The company now works with some 200 firms which include the railroads, pharmaceutical laboratories, machine shops, fabricators, etc.

A Luster Metal Finishing has 12 employees and operates three shifts for immediate turn-around.