Clemco starts up custom-engineered blast room virtually

Members of the MGS on-site installation crew stand at the entrance of their completed blast room.

Washington, Mo.-based Clemco Industries, a manufacturer of air-powered abrasive-blast equipment, recently guided MGS Inc. through the startup of a 54- by 20-ft. blast room on-site, via video chat.

A Precision Finishing employee and three employees of MGS, a Pennsylvania-based trailer manufacturer that purchased the blast room from Precision Finishing, were on-site at MGS. Via video chat, the on-site participants followed instructions from two Clemco employees to start up the new blast room.

“Of course, we weren’t planning on a virtual startup,” said Adam Gildehause, the Clemco field service engineer who led the virtual startup. “But then COVID-19 hit.”

Gildehause and Clemco Northeast Territory Manager Nathan Bjornson remotely guided the on-site crew through the usual startup checklist, as well as through extra steps for the blast room’s custom-engineered components. They helped the on-site crew determine that the dust collector’s reverse-pulse settings and pulse pressure were correctly calibrated and helped them make adjustments to the motors of the blast room’s two bucket elevators, air-wash abrasive cleaner, dust collector, and belt recovery system.

The startup of the room, which is used to blast 48-ft. and longer trailer frames to a near-white metal finish, took about three hours.