Duron Paints & Wallcoverings

Cleveland-Eastern Mixers Delivers Reliability and Limited Downtime for over 12 years

Duron Paints and Wallcoverings was established in 1949 to be a producer of premium-line latex, alkyd and industrial paints for professional painters. Duron's initial success led to the opening of a 30,000 square-foot plant in Beltsville , Maryland in the 1960's.

Just twenty years later, Duron expanded operations again, this time in Georgia . In 1986, the plant construction was under-way and the selection of processing equipment began. An essential aspect of their plant was the mixing equipment that would produce their end product. In all, Duron planned to purchase over forty heavy-duty top entry mixers.

Rigorous Selection Criteria: Duron sought bids from four different mixer manufacturers. Their selection criteria included reliability, value, and the assurance of a process warranty. In addition, it was essential that the vendor selected had a history of proven application experience. Doug Wanko, General Plant Manager in 1986 recalls, “We decided on Cleveland-Eastern because they had a very good relationship with the tank manufacturer we selected and they had process knowledge from working with other leading paint manufacturers. Most importantly, an engineering study of all the bids revealed that the Cleveland models offered the best quality and value. They weren't the cheapest, but they were the best.”

Equipment: Duron ordered thirty-eight Cleveland AL Series top entry mixers. These were installed in 1989 when the plant became operational. The equipment includes five mixers for 20,000 gallon storage tanks, six mixers for 4000 gallon thin-down tanks, twenty-one mixers for 2000 gallon thin-down tanks, five mixers for 1000 gallon thin-down tanks and three mixers for flocculation tanks.

Innovative Hydrofoil Impeller Design: At the time of Duron's plant expansion, the paint industry specified two-blade, 30 ° axial impellers as standard. Cleveland-Eastern's application engineers suggested state-of-the-art hydrofoil impellers that require less horsepower than standard axial blades. The initial specification for the 2000 gallon tanks was three impellers per shaft. However, the agitation created by the three hydrofoil impellers exceeded everyone's expectations. The result was that Duron chose to reduce the number of hydrofoil impellers to just two, thereby achieving ideal agitation with still less horsepower than axial impellers.

Twelve years later, how satisfied is Duron with their choice?: With the exception of one flocculation tank mixer, which has been retrofitted in 1998 with a new Cleveland AL series mixer, all of the original mixers are still in operation. Duron continues to bring innovative new products to the paint and coatings market, while Cleveland-Eastern mixers are able to accommodate the increased viscosities these new products demand.

Very Low Maintenance Costs: Garey Estes, General Plant Manager at Duron for the last four years, has over twenty years in the paint industry. In that time, he has worked with a lot of different mixers. In his experience, Cleveland-Eastern models have been among the easiest to maintain. In fact, the only maintenance in the past twelve years has been routine seal replacement. He says “Maintenance costs have been low, much lower than mixing equipment I've worked with previously.”

Reliability and Limited Downtime: In the last few years, Duron increased production by 40% to produce over 45,000 gallons per day in its Georgia plant. In spite of more rigorous demands on the equipment both in terms of higher viscosities and longer running cycles, Cleveland mixers meet Duron's needs.

The Georgia plant is filled entirely with Cleveland equipment, so mixer down-time and reliability is one less issue for Estes to worry about. Estes comments, “Our Beltsville plant purchased a mixer from another company a year ago and they are already having maintenance problems. Whereas here in Georgia , it's been smooth sailing with Cleveland-Eastern.”

Contact Cleveland-Eastern Mixers at 1-800-243-1188 or email info@emimixers.com for more information.