Project Porcupine Roller: Coating spec says we can’t be off by even a “hair”.

Project Porcupine Roller

Thickness variance of no more than a “hair”? Okay, the coating spec didn’t actually say that, but the analogy is accurate. The coating specification called for an average coating thickness of 2 mils; but no less than 1.5 and no more than 3 mils. “Mil” which is terminology used mostly in the U.S., is equal to 1/1000th of an inch, or 25.4µ (microns). Two mils is also the average diameter of a human hair.

For this commercial dough docker roller, the downside of not meeting this spec was if the coating went on too thick, the coating can fracture during the curing process. And if that isn’t visually evident, it can still weaken the coating in those areas, leading to delamination. Conversely if the coating is too thin, then the release properties needed for this roller to poke and release the dough as it rolls over it will likely under perform, resulting in a lot of wasted scrap and downtime for our baking client.

For the coating applicator, the challenge is to use application techniques which allow the coating to build up thickness along the roller at the base of the “spines” without building up more than 2 mils on the spines themselves.

We’ve been handling challenging projects like this one for a long time. Our team has been together for over 28 years. Our lead “applicator” is also my partner, Bun Than Luy; who has been an owner in ECS since 1997. For Bun and the rest of our team, these years of experience serve us well when orders like Project Porcupine Roller show up, and the coating spec says we can’t be off by even a “hair”.