It all began when a company in Europe called the local Shell station to ask for a recommendation for a body shop. The European tank manufacturer was sending motorcycle tanks to Polaris in Spirit Lake to be painted and then assembled onto a bike; however, there were adhesion problems. The tanks were fine when they left Europe, but when they arrived in Iowa the primer was peeling. Shipping the tanks back across the ocean was not cost effective, and they certainly did not want to scrap them, so they contacted Gjerde Collision Center to see if we could help them out.
For such a random call, they certainly got the right guy for the job. Jeff began by replicating the original process for the purpose of identifying the cause of the adhesion failures. He was never able to exactly pinpoint the source because we couldn’t procure the same products used in Europe.
Ultimately Jeff stripped the tanks down to bare metal and developed a new process for priming them. The tanks were tested relentlessly, considering the issues experienced to date, and not a single tank failed.
Upon getting these results the European company asked Gjerde to prime 500 tanks. First they needed 10 per day to avoid shutting down the assembly line at the Spirit Lake plant…then they needed 15, and then 22 per day. We worked long hours to meet the demands; we met every quota to keep the line running.
The European company was so pleased with our work they then asked us to prime another type of tank they were manufacturing for Polaris, this time on more of a long term basis. They would ship the raw tanks to us, we would prep them, and then we delivered them to Polaris. This provided the European company less risk in that their finished product was shipped a much shorter distance, and guaranteed them little to no rejected material costs.
