Description: Industrial cleaning with ice offers environmental advances and cost savings Keywords: Coulson Ice Blast, cleaning technology, industrial cleaning, environmental sustainability, cost savings, Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canadian businesses, family businesses, water management, Victoria Gaitskell

1. thinkallied.com
Automation, electromechanical, cabling, and
interconnect products from 300+ manufacturers.
MAY17 AC Branding Front Cover Banner (MA).qxp_Layout 1 4/20/17 3:32 PM Page 1
OCTOBER
2017
PM
40065710
GOING DIGITAL: A future-
proof factory requires the
right technology and talent
to operate it. p.16
CENTRE STAGE: Q&A with
Raeann Schmidt, a machine
operator at Ontario Drive &
Gear. p.17
ENERGY USAGE: Six steps for
manufacturers to effectively monitor, manage and reduce
their energy consumption. p.22
AutomationMag.com
Your resource for Canada’s industrial automation news
A new vibration-proof body shop
transfer system targets zero
maintenance p.18
ADVANCING
AUTOMOTIVE
ASSEMBLY

2. 24 @AutomationMag October 2017 · MANUFACTURING AUTOMATION
PHOTO:
COULSON
ICE
BLAST
WATER MANAGEMENT
C
oulson Ice Blast, a British Col-
umbia startup that launched
this February, recently com-
menced mass production of a
new technology using blasted
ice for industrial cleaning.
It calls its mobile ice-blasting machine the
IceStorm90 because it produces what looks
like a storm of ice pellets that can be focused
into a stream as narrow as two inches wide.
Although it operates along lines similar to ear-
lier technologies that blast a medium such as
pressurized water, sand, sodium bicarbonate,
ordryicepelletsontoasoiledorcontaminated
surface,CoulsonIceBlastvicepresidentFoster
Coulson says ice blasting represents a major
advance in environmentally friendly cleaning.
“As far as I know, we’re the only ones doing
it, and we’ve spent a lot of time and energy
filingnewpatentstoprotectthetechnology.It’s
something unique and special, and we’re very
excitedtobringittomarketandreallytrytoad-
vance the state of industrial cleaning—which
hasn’t really seen any innovation in the last
70 years since dry ice blasting technology was
invented in 1947. Over the same time period,
environmental regulations have significantly
increased, yet innovations in technology have
been lacking.”
How it works
Coulson says ice blasting technology exceeds
almost every environmental regulation that
has been set. “It involves no added chemicals,
no environmental contaminants, negligible
airborne contaminants, and minimal resid-
ual water waste. It’s pretty much the most
environmentally friendly way you can clean.”
“On average, our system uses 95 per cent
less water than a pressure washer,” he speci-
fies. “By contrast, pressure washing varies
with the technology, but it can use up to
about 1,200 U.S. gallons of water per hour.
Industrial cleaning
with ice offers
environmental
advances and cost
savings
BY VICTORIA GAITSKELL
ICE IT OFF
Depending on what you’re blasting, trying to
treat and dispose of that amount of water can
be very costly.”
Heexplainsthattheenvironmentaladvan-
tages of cleaning with ice derive partly from
the fact that it is the only medium that can
exist during blasting in all three phases of
matter: solid, liquid and gas.
“It hits the surface it’s cleaning as a solid,
then half of it turns into a gas which evapor-
ates, and the other half stays in a liquid form
which pulls airborne contaminants down to
the ground instead of releasing them into the
atmosphere.”
By contrast, he says other forms of
chemical, abrasive and dry ice blasting often
produce hazardous airborne contaminants,
so much so that workers operating these
forms of blasting typically require artificial
respiration or breathing protection devices.
He says the ice blasting process creates rela-
tively little residual waste.
“On average, blasting at three pounds a
minuteyou’llhavearound10gallonsanhourof
water residual waste.” In terms of media costs,
ice is also cheaper than, say, dry ice blasting
pellets, which cost from 90 cents up to two
dollars per pound. According to Coulson, ice
costs less than one cent per pound to make or
12 cents per pound when purchased.
Coulson says other factors that make ice
attractive as a cleaning medium are that it
is natural and readily available. “For other
chemical processes and dry ice blasting, you
need to buy artificial media in the form of
premade chemicals or dry ice pellets. But ice
is natural and bare-bones basic. If you wanted
to, you could make it inexpensively yourself
from any type of water source — tap water,
for example — and store it indefinitely in a
freezer. Contractors often store ice in 300-,
400-, or 500-pound totes where it lasts for
four or five days.” As alternatives to making ice
yourself,CoulsonIceBlastalsosellsice-making
machines and offers ice distribution through
its partnership with Reddy Ice (U.S.A.), an ice
manufacturing company.
He adds that ice is one of the only cleaning
media that can turn corners during blasting.
“If you needed a cleaning agent that can travel,
say, along a 30-foot hose with S-curves and a
90-degree corner, few media could do the job,
because most of them lose energy travelling
around corners and get stuck. But ice would
beabletocleanperfectlythroughoutthewhole
length of the hose.”
Success in the industry
Ice blasting is suitable for a range of industries
including aerospace, plastics, power genera-
tion, printing, and pulp and paper.
One example is the AFCO Denso/Bosch
plant in South Carolina, which uses the equip-
ment to deburr copper motor parts. “Since
1995, AFCO has continuously operated an Ice
Blast machine to deburr copper motor arma-
turefacesforfuelpumps.TheuseofIceBlastto
deburr has been crucial to producing our high

3. MANUFACTURING AUTOMATION · October 2017 AutomationMag.com 25
• Helical Gearing
• Available in 5 frame sizes
• Peak Torque: 9Nm to 752Nm
• Ratios: 3:1 to 31:1, new two-stage
ratios available soon
• Quick Connect®
mounting system
• High Efficiency
• Backlash: <5 arc-min (single stage),
<7 arc-min (two stage)
• Fast Delivery
• Shaft output available with key and center-
tapped hole or with center-tapped hole
Partners in Precision
HPN Harmonic Planetary®
value series provides a low cost solution without the
need to compromise on quality or performance. This new value series of planetary
gears carry the reputation for quality and reliability for which Harmonic Drive®
products are known throughout the world.
Harmonic Drive®, Harmonic Planetary® and Quick Connect® are registered trademarks of Harmonic Drive LLC.
Electromate Industrial Sales is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Harmonic Drive® products (except the Province of Alberta).
Electromate Industrial
6221 Highway 7, Unit #15
Vaughan, Ontario, Canada L4H 0K8
(877) SERVO98 (737-8698)
www.electromate.com
Harmonic Drive LLC
247 Lynnfield Street
Peabody, MA 01960
800.921.3332
www.HarmonicDrive.net
Servo Mount
Gearheads
Low Backlash
For Life!
ManAuto HD Ad.indd 1 9/25/17 10:34 AM
MA_Harmonic_Oct.indd 1 2017-09-25 1:22 PM
quality fuel pumps...for the North
American automotive industry,”
wrote AFCO project engineer
Jack Engram in a statement. “Ice
Blast technology continues to be
a cost-effective solution for our
deburring and precision cleaning
needs. Aside from normal main-
tenance, the Ice Blast equipment
has performed reliably for the
last 20 years. The ability to rely
on this machine eases our minds
in production because we are
confident that the Ice Blast will
achievethenecessary standardof
clean every time.”
Meanwhile, the British Colum-
bian branch of Disaster Kleenup
International (DKI), a North
American disaster restoration
contractor with estimated annual
revenues in excess of $1.7 billion,
uses Coulson Ice Blast equipment
toremoveleadpaintfromconcrete.
Rich Canadian
roots
Coulson Ice Blast grew out of a
family business started by Coul-
son’s grandfather, Cliff, when he
launchedasmallloggingcompany
in Port Alberni on Vancouver
Island in 1960. Coulson’s father,
Wayne, subsequently grew the
companyintoTheCoulsonGroup,
aconglomeratewhoseotheractiv-
itieshaveincludedmanufacturing
woodproductsandaviation.With-
in the last two years, they sold off
theloggingandlumberoperations
to concentrate on aviation and ice
blasting. While Wayne continues
as president and CEO of The
Coulson Group, Coulson’s brother
Britton is vice president of the
aviation division, which involves
overhauling aircraft components
and aerial fire suppression.
The natural surroundings of
Port Alberni yield such local
attractions as salmon and sport
fishing, provincial parks, hik-
ing trails, mountain climbing,
Cathedral Grove (an old-growth
forest of towering Douglas fir
trees, some over 800 years old),
and Della Falls (Canada’s highest
waterfall). Given this superb
environment, it is not surprising
that environmental friendliness
is a key value underlying The
Coulson Group operations.
Its association with ice blasting
equipment began in 2012, when
it wanted to remove paint from
a Martin Mars aircraft it had
acquired and repaint the plane in
their fleet colours: red and white.
Thepaintremovaltaskraisedtech-
nicalproblems,however,sincethe
Martin Mars can only take off on
water,ithadtostaysituatedbeside
alake.Thiscomplicationruledout
pressure washing, which requires
more water than was available
at the plane’s site. Sand blasting
was equally impractical, since the
Martin Mars is the world’s largest
flying water bomber, too big to
permit the full containment that
sand blasting requires.
Instead, an engineer at The
Coulson Group suggested and
built an ice blasting machine
using technology he learned at
a previous job at Universal Ice
Blast, an American company that
manufactured ice blasting equip-
ment until it went bankrupt in
2001. The Coulson Group was so
pleased with the machine’s results
thattheytrackeddowntheformer
owner of Universal Ice Blast, pur-
chased the technology from him,
and have been refining it and
planningthefutureofCoulsonIce
Blast ever since. | MA