Today's post is by guest writer Albert Greenhut of Engineered Materials, Inc..
There is field testing and then there are tests in the field.
At the Intercept Technology Group, we have run all our products through the gamut of industry-recognized tests. Our materials have performed well in these tests, but as a consumer I always keep a wary eye on the fine print, as all wise consumers should. Being familiar with these tests I can say that they are tough, but nothing compares to the real life tests.
We got a call from a guitar player in Thailand, telling us about a set of circumstances that wound up being an extreme field test for Intercept Technology packaging.
Let me step back for a moment to share what packaging’s implications are on guitar strings. First, the structural integrity of guitar strings must not be compromised; these strings stretch to fit to the guitar and then are heaved on continuously - any point of weakness will be quickly found, and when the one weak point breaks a guitar string, the entire stringing kit (all six strings come in one pack) needs replacement. (A common complaint with guitar players is that they have many sets of strings short the high E string, because of the tendency of that one to break.) Keeping these pressures in mind, it is easy to understand why corrosion on one string can mean the musician will need a whole new set of strings soon, since corrosion weakens the strings. Additionally, the surface area on guitar strings is much more than a non-player might think - a string up close is essentially a tight coil, meaning the surface area is much greater as compared to a normal wire. The additional surface creates added opportunity for corrosion because the greater the surface area the faster the corrosion, just like a requirement to simply hit a dart board produces a lot more hits than the requirement to hit the bulls eye every time.
This “test” was created by a monsoon producing massive flooding. The strings were being stored in a warehouse in Southeast Asia. This was a particularly fierce storm with high winds that kicked up enormous waves. These waves were high enough to flood the storage facility including the box where the guitar strings were stored. These high surface area guitar strings had been sitting in salt water for years and had not corroded thanks to the Corrosion Intercept bags protecting them. This is because of the way Intercept Technology works. What makes Intercept products unique and particularly effective is that they create a clean micro-environment around the product despite whatever might be happening on the outside, be it salt water or corrosive gasses in the air. As a comparison, this company had a competitor’s strings that had been in an unaffected warehouse for five years, and those strings were already non-playable.
My main point here is that a skeptical customer should realize that tests can be set up in such a way as to encourage certain results. I may be overly cynical, because when a product claims to do so much, it can overwhelm your sense of belief. However, when a field test is so extreme and has such clear results as this one, it is hard not to step back and admire. My admiration comes from seeing the Intercept Technology packaging product go above and beyond. No, Intercept products are not designed, intended, or guaranteed to work under or when filled with salt water, but again that fact does not stop one from appreciating that they did.
As we like to say around the office: “hey, the stuff just works”.
Intercept Technology Packaging products fit within a sustainability strategy because they are reusable, recyclable, do not contain or use volatile components (No VOCs, Not a VCI) and leave a smaller carbon footprint than most traditional protective packaging products.
Liberty Intercept Blog
Packaging for Disaster - Intercept Packaging Field Test
Posted by Elaine Spitz on Mar 28, 2012 11:30:00 AM
There is field testing and then there are tests in the field.
At the Intercept Technology Group, we have run all our products through the gamut of industry-recognized tests. Our materials have performed well in these tests, but as a consumer I always keep a wary eye on the fine print, as all wise consumers should. Being familiar with these tests I can say that they are tough, but nothing compares to the real life tests.
We got a call from a guitar player in Thailand, telling us about a set of circumstances that wound up being an extreme field test for Intercept Technology packaging.
Let me step back for a moment to share what packaging’s implications are on guitar strings. First, the structural integrity of guitar strings must not be compromised; these strings stretch to fit to the guitar and then are heaved on continuously - any point of weakness will be quickly found, and when the one weak point breaks a guitar string, the entire stringing kit (all six strings come in one pack) needs replacement. (A common complaint with guitar players is that they have many sets of strings short the high E string, because of the tendency of that one to break.) Keeping these pressures in mind, it is easy to understand why corrosion on one string can mean the musician will need a whole new set of strings soon, since corrosion weakens the strings. Additionally, the surface area on guitar strings is much more than a non-player might think - a string up close is essentially a tight coil, meaning the surface area is much greater as compared to a normal wire. The additional surface creates added opportunity for corrosion because the greater the surface area the faster the corrosion, just like a requirement to simply hit a dart board produces a lot more hits than the requirement to hit the bulls eye every time.
This “test” was created by a monsoon producing massive flooding. The strings were being stored in a warehouse in Southeast Asia. This was a particularly fierce storm with high winds that kicked up enormous waves. These waves were high enough to flood the storage facility including the box where the guitar strings were stored. These high surface area guitar strings had been sitting in salt water for years and had not corroded thanks to the Corrosion Intercept bags protecting them. This is because of the way Intercept Technology works. What makes Intercept products unique and particularly effective is that they create a clean micro-environment around the product despite whatever might be happening on the outside, be it salt water or corrosive gasses in the air. As a comparison, this company had a competitor’s strings that had been in an unaffected warehouse for five years, and those strings were already non-playable.
My main point here is that a skeptical customer should realize that tests can be set up in such a way as to encourage certain results. I may be overly cynical, because when a product claims to do so much, it can overwhelm your sense of belief. However, when a field test is so extreme and has such clear results as this one, it is hard not to step back and admire. My admiration comes from seeing the Intercept Technology packaging product go above and beyond. No, Intercept products are not designed, intended, or guaranteed to work under or when filled with salt water, but again that fact does not stop one from appreciating that they did.
As we like to say around the office: “hey, the stuff just works”.
Intercept Technology Packaging products fit within a sustainability strategy because they are reusable, recyclable, do not contain or use volatile components (No VOCs, Not a VCI) and leave a smaller carbon footprint than most traditional protective packaging products.
Topics: Intercept Technology packaging, anti-corrosion, consumer products, guitar strings
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