Nylon Deburring

The Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. utilizes its Nitrofreeze Deburring Process to remove burrs from machined parts for customers throughout the United States. From our new headquarters in Worcester, Massachusetts we provide our nylon deburring service with a fast turnaround of only 2 business days after receipt. We are capable of fulfilling this quick turnaround thanks to added capacity with the acquisition of our new 5,000 square foot facility. Our new facility boasts a lean production floor providing plenty of room for our two cryogenic deflashing systems.

As many machinists know, nylon is one of those fickle materials that simply loves to leave burrs behind after machining. Rather than have one of your colleagues or employees deburr each part by hand, we offer a batch deburring process capable of removing all these burrs in just minutes.

The Nitrofreeze Deburring Process removes burrs through cold temperatures, tumbling, and media blasting. We take the parts near the glass transition point of your part’s material, then tumble the parts slowly while plastic media as small as 0.015” blasts at the parts. Our process offers repeatable results from lot to lot while offering you a low price-per-part.

To learn more about our deburring process, visit our new cryogenic deburring website. We offer pre-production engineering evaluations (PPEE) to show you what our process can do for your nylon parts. This evaluation includes multiple samples, production sized lot process creation, as well as before and after photographs.

If you are pleased with the results, we will issue you a quotation for our contract service. In addition, if you want to bring our proprietary process in-house as many manufacturers do, we can provide you with a cryogenic deflashing system. We will provide you with your parts’ process variables, training, and the technical know-how to conduct Nitrofreeze Cryogenic Deburring on your nylon parts. To learn more, please contact Ryan M. Taylor at (800) 739-7949 or at rtaylor@nitrofreeze.com.

Join The Nitrofreeze Facebook Group

Nitrofreeze Cryogenic Services is always please to indulge our customers and readers with more knowledge about our company and services. We post regularly on our Facebook page to provide our readers with new information as it becomes available. Come check out our Facebook Page and learn more about dry ice blasting, cryogenic treatment, deburring, deflashing and upcoming events.

Deflashing Rubber Service

The Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. provides its proprietary Nitrofreeze Cryogenic Deflashing Service to customers across the United States. Our new facility located in Worcester, Massachusetts has boosted capacity so that we are capable of deflashing your rubber parts in two business days after receipt.

Our deflashing process utilizes cold temperatures, tumbling and plastic media blasting to remove flash from the interior and exterior of your parts. The process is completed in batches so that throughput is increased and price per part is lower when compared to alternative deflashing processes such as hand deflashing.

Since introducing our Nitrofreeze Deflashing Service in 2003, we have cryogenically deflashed many types of rubber. Parts made of EPDM, Neoprene, Viton, Acrylic, Nitrile, Butadiene, Butyl, Silicone and many other types of rubber are great candidates for our deflashing process. We offer free evaluations of your parts to see if they are a good fit for our process. If they are a good fit, then we can process samples for a nominal fee.

If you are satisfied with the results of our deflashing process as most of our customers are, we will issue you a quotation for our contract service. If you are interested in bringing our proprietary cryogenic deflashing process in to your facility, we will be glad to provide you with equipment and the technical knowledge to do so. To learn more about our cryogenic deflashing service and deflashing equipment, please contact Ryan M. Taylor by phone at (800) 739-7949 or by email at rtaylor@nitrofreeze.com.

Cryogenic Treatment of Speaker Wire

Over the years we have cryo treated many different applications from almost every industry. The processing of audio equipment has become a mainstay for our cryogenic treatment business. In 2007 and 2008 we cryo treated 10,000+ audio tubes, over a ton of speaker wire, several hundred amplifiers and thousands of connectors. Since that time, the numbers have only grown.

So, why do so many audiophiles have their audio components cryogenically treated?

Stock audio components and wires have internal stresses in them created during the manufacturing process. This degrades the sonic performance of these components. Cryogenic treatment relieves these stress lines so that the components perform beyond the original manufacturers' specifications.

Recently, we treated some hi-quality speaker wire for a new customer. He was pleasantly surprised with the results. Look at what he had to say below.

"I am having a listening session for friends next Sat. Once they hear the difference, I am sure they will want theirs cryoed as well. I'll let you know when I get a firm count and am ready to send to you. The difference was quite remarkable for an already good wire.

Thanks

GJG"

If you are interested in having your audio components cryogenically treated, please contact us by phone at (508) 459-7447 or email us at info@nitrofreeze.com.

Deflashing for Rubber

Cryogenic deflashing has existed for several decades to serve the rubber and silicone molding industries. For several decades this process has helped remove residual flash left over by the molding process. Flash along parting lines, in holes, and gates vestiges can be removed by this deflashing process.

The process originally was created to remove flash from molded o-rings made of rubber and silicone. The parts would be loaded in a tumbler which would pump nitrogen in to cool the parts while tumbling them against one another. As time progressed, media was added to the process to help remove flash in hard to reach places. The addition of media to the process has resulted in an increase in overall applications.

Today components from aerospace, defense, medical and many other industries are processed using cryogenic deflashing. Parts made of rubber and silicone tend to leave behind excess flash that must be removed. The easiest way to remove flash from these parts is to use a cryogenic deflashing system or service. At our facility, in Worcester, MA we provide cryogenic deflashing as a service to molders of rubber and silicone. In addition, we also provide cryogenic deflashing systems to our customers that need to bring this process in-house.

If you are having problems deflashing your parts, let us know. We would be pleased to assist you in evaluating your parts for our deflashing process. Please contact us at 800-739-7949 or email me at rtaylor@nitrofreeze.com. To learn more about the cryogenic deflashing process, please visit our deflashing page.

Emergency Dry Ice Blast Cleaning in the Northeast

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 we received a call for an emergency dry ice blast cleaning service in New York State from a major power company. Just the day before a fire had caused damage at one of their urban substations. A transformer had caught fire several feet above two cooling plants. A major fire ensued resulting in significant smoke and fire damage.

From the time the fire began to the point it was extinguished, an hour had passed. The platform that the transformer was connected to was unstable as one of its beams had begun to melt from the fire. The cooling plants located below the platform were spotted with molten steel and other debris. In addition, the interior of the cooling plants was coated with soot and carbon from the fire. Some potheads were destroyed by the heat and others were coated in a thin layer of carbon from the massive smoke plume. The power company now needed to complete the cleanup, remove and replace power generation components and make sure everything was running properly before electricity demand goes up in the spring and summer months. The company planned on having the fire damaged section of the substation online by early April.

As stated previously, I was contacted on the 2nd of March to see if we would be capable of coming down on such short notice to conduct the cleaning of the two cooling plants and three potheads. The power company was planning on having us come down to start cleaning on Friday night, March 4th. I immediately got together a proposal for the cleaning based on phone conversations and pictures provided by the client.

Everything came together the day the cleaning was to commence. The power company was able to get us dry ice (very hard to purchase unless ordered in advance) and we had a diesel powered air compressor dropped at the site. Just after noon we left our facility in Worcester, Massachusetts and began the journey to New York State.

The ride was uneventful and for a Friday afternoon great on traffic. We reached the substation just after 5:30PM on Friday night. We checked in and then took part in a briefing for the fire damage project. The next step was to ensure that we had the correct ice, which is exactly where things started to get interesting. In two massive tubs was 2,000 lbs. of dry ice “Cheeto” pellets. We could not use this ice in our Cold Jet equipment. Fortunately enough, we were able to procure the correct dry ice at Continental Carbonics in Secaucus, New Jersey; however we only were able to get 1,600 lbs. We had brought 400 lbs. of ice with us from our most recent job. This gave us 2,000 lbs. to complete the job; I had figured we would need about 3,000 lbs.

After arriving back on-site, we were able to get setup. Within a few hours we started dry ice blast cleaning the first cooling plant. Some of the fire damage would not clean because the fire had fully compromised the metal. In other areas, failed paint peeled right off the surface leaving corroded metal behind. I was told that this cooling plant would receive an almost new coat of paint.

By 5:00AM we had started cleaning the second cooling plant. This plant cleaned much faster and looked significantly better than the first cooling plant after it was cleaned. The second cooling plant was located several feet away from the transformer fire, and was not in bad a shape after the fire. The carbon and smoke damage cleaned up very well in this cooling plant. Just after 8:00AM we had completed blasting of the two cooling plants. We disconnected our equipment and stored it outside of the work area. By 10AM we were off-site until 8AM the next day (Sunday). At this point we had just a bit over 400 lbs. to complete the three potheads. In addition, 2000 lbs. of dry ice was to be delivered from an ice vendor located in NY on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning we arrived on-site just before 8AM. We began to setup and it began to sprinkle rain. Rain in some aspects can make dry ice blast cleaning far more tough than it normally is. However, we brushed it off knowing that the rain was not going to get worse until much later in the day. We began to blast using the remaining dry ice we had from the previous day. Rob Tucker, one of our dry ice blasting technicians went up on a scissor lift to clean the frontal areas of the potheads. This went extremely well and the potheads quickly returned to a near new condition.

The ice delivered on Sunday was not able to be used in our dry ice blast cleaning system. Therefore we needed to get more ice in order to complete the cleaning. We had to contact our home office and setup a dry ice delivery of 1,000 lbs. to complete the last two potheads. It was late Sunday night, so the chances of getting ice for Monday were slim to none. We would start making calls the following morning to procure more dry ice. Shortly after 9:00PM we had run out of ice and began to pack up our equipment for storage. By 11PM we were completely done for the day just as the rain and wind were picking up for the night.

On Monday morning we were able to get the additional 1,000 lbs. of dry ice that we needed. It would be delivered mid-afternoon. The site manager wanted us back for 6PM so we could blast during the evening. On Monday night we went up in a boom lift to better reach all sides of the potheads. We completed the dry ice blasting of the remaining two potheads just after 4:30AM. We were all packed up and ready to go at 6:15AM. By 6:30PM we were back in Worcester after several days working on the emergency project.

If your company has a power generation fire with significant smoke and soot damage then give us a call at (508) 459-7447. We can review photos to see if the job is a good fit for dry ice blast cleaning. For more information about dry ice blast cleaning and the power generation industry visit http://www.nitrofreeze.com/dry_ice_blasting_generators_and_turbines.html. You can also contact me directly at rtaylor@nitrofreeze.com.

Cryogenic Treatment for Drill Bits

Every Friday we start our processor and complete a weekend run. We load the parts in and then set our process parameters for the run. We use ramps that go down no more than a degree per minute and we hold all the parts at -300°F for a total of 24 hours. Upon completion of the cycle, the parts are unloaded, re-packaged and shipped. The process is often used on drills to promote longer life and higher wear resistance.

Cryogenically treated steels will undergo three transformations during this exacting process. First, the crystalline structure will transform. Retained austenite left over from heat treating will be converted to the more desirable crystal form, martensite. This will allow any imperfections or voids in the crystalline structure to be removed, creating a more durable part. Second, carbon deposits will populate, this process is known as the precipitation of eta-carbides. This will lead to wear resistance improvements, allowing the parts to last significantly longer. Third, all metals not just steel benefit from residual stress relief. Stress relieving the drills will eliminate fatigue lines along which the parts would eventually fail.

Drill bits benefit significantly from the cryogenic treatment process. Hi-speed steels and tool steels will see major increases in life. Many manufacturers also enjoy reduced downtime because less tool changes will be needed with cryogenically treated drills.

We have been cryogenically treating drills for many industries for almost the past decade. Micro drills have become a popular application because they are not robust. One customer using these micro drills for drilling holes in PEEK implants has experienced a 100% improvement in lifetime. Drills that have been coated can also be cryogenically treated. This offers manufacturers premium drills that will outlast untreated tooling. We have treated thousands of drill bits since our inception in 2002. If you want to reduce your downtime and increase your drills’ lifetime then cryogenic treatment is an excellent solution. To learn more about cryogenic treatment, please visit http://www.nitrofreeze.com/cryogenic_treatment.html or call us at (800) 739-7949.