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PRODUCTS FINISHING — pfonline.com 29 PRETREATMENT CHANGE Manhasset was kind enough to customize the color to meet our specific needs at Symphony Hall in Boston, which was most appreciated." 5 Million Stands There have been more than 5 million Manhasset music stands built in the past 80 years, the first being born when Lagervall—a musician who lived in Manhasset, New York (hence the company name)—became dissatisfied with the shortcomings and workmanship of the music stands he used while playing, and decided to make his own. During the early 1940s, Lagervall moved the company to Yakima and started mass producing the stands, much to the delight of music teachers and managers of opera houses and symphony halls around the world, who made the Manhasset Specialty Company the No. 1 brand of music stands by the mid-1950s. "It really is an honor to be known as the company that makes the very best of a certain product," says Dan Roberts, president and general manager of Manhasset Specialty Co. "We have our products all over the world, and we're still making several hundred thousand a year. Our customers are very loyal." In 2002, Manhasset replaced its paint line with a powder coating system in order to move toward a greener technology. Companies in the Pacific Northwest are well known for their environmental awareness, and Manhasset was no different. Soon thereafter, the company started to look at its finishing line's pretreatment system and to ask questions about how it could switch to a greener technology, while still accomplishing the same—or better—quality and adhesion. Greener System With a call to Mary Carpenter at Chemtec North America in Alexandria, Virginia, back in 2007, things started rolling in Manhasset's search for greener chemical tech- nology, but a series of events stalled the progress of the installation. The green part of the improvement plan was para- mount, but Manhasset's finishing line personnel had to get their company management on board by showing addi- tional benefits of an upgrade, and the eventual payback it would bring. Just as the plan was coming together with Chemtec's help, the process was slowed by the difficult economic times of 2008 and 2009, which put most major improvement project plans on hold. By 2010, the plan was back on the drawing board, and after several years of planning and review, it was finally approved in 2013. The conventional pretreatment setup Manhasset was using was a typical system that included water and heat to pretreat the surface, with several stages and a single chemistries in each bath. For Manhasset, it was a typical degreaser, rinse, then phosphating followed by another rinse and a sealcoat. The 5-stage system called for skimming out the oils, as well as changing out the water baths as needed. And it is usually a labor-intensive and expensive proposition, depending on heating costs and water usage. Plaforization Chemtec was proposing its Plaforization system, an organic phosphating technology that Carpenter says is designed to degrease and phosphate metal surfaces in a one-step operation, all at room temperature, without water and without solid or liquid wastes. The system operates in a processing cycle that includes a one-minute treatment phase followed by a several- minute draining phase where excess liquid is recovered.