VIDEO: TOOLING UP – Benefits of Wire Brushes

NARRATOR: This video is brought to you by MCR Safety, in the business of protecting people and sustainable stewardship. If you're looking for real world insights, tips from leading industry experts, the latest trends in products and technology, you've come to the right place. From MSC Industrial Supply, this is Tooling Up.

TONI NEARY:  Hi, and thanks for tuning into Tooling Up. I'm your host, Toni Neary, and we're so happy to have you here today on the MSC channel.

If you're new here, welcome. And if you've joined us before, welcome back. Please make sure to click that subscribe button so you don't miss any upcoming episodes and to also like today's episode as well. I'm really excited for today's guest, we have Rich Pepera from Osborn with us, and he is the director of sales. Rich, thanks for being here with us today.

RICH PEPERA: Toni, thanks so much for having me. 

TONI NEARY:  Absolutely. So today, before we dig in to our discussion on the pivoting conversation that we will have on wire brushes for welding, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your experience there at Osborn. 

RICH PEPERA: Osborn has been a great company to work for. I've been here for 30 years. I've had numerous positions within Osborn from inside sales to outside territorial sales in the regional management and currently as director of sales for Osborn.

It's truly a challenge every day to get up and talk about new applications, work with distribution partners, as well as calling on end users. 

TONI NEARY: I love the fact that you worked your way up from the ground floor into this, you know, leadership role at Osborn, and it says a lot about the organization itself. So tell me a little bit about this company and why you've spent 30 years there.

RICH PEPERA: The company has been very good. It's been very good in terms of learning from the ground up. There are a lot of opportunities if you're willing to assert yourself within the company itself. 

TONI NEARY: And so Osborn is one of the top suppliers of wire brushes. Why do you think they're one of the top in the industry? 

RICH PEPERA:  It's our reputation. It's the work ethic. It's our people. There are a myriad of reasons why we are a 130-year-old company and we do things consistently. We do manufacture a quality product. 

TONI NEARY: And I think one of the things we talked about earlier when you and I were chatting was problem solving and that you're very, very driven by solving the problems of your customers. Tell me a little bit about wire brushes for welding and what type of problems those solve. 

RICH PEPERA:  You know, wire brushes are typically used in a lot of plants, not only for welding, but for metal fabrication preparation prior to welding, rust removal, cleaning up oxidation, just a myriad of applications. So from that standpoint, it's very, very exciting to go into a shop or fab company and actually take a look at what they're doing and to kind of solve their application problems.

TONI NEARY: And I know that part of the process is you're solving their increased efficiency, versatility, durability and safety. But what are some of the reasons somebody would use a wire brush versus a coated abrasive or another tool? 

RICH PEPERA:  You know, the main reason, the brushes typically last longer. It really depends upon the application, what you're doing with it, the type of metal that you're working on, the type of pressure. There's lots of variables to brushing, deburring as a whole.

But nine times out of ten, your wire brush is going to last much longer than a coated abrasive product. And typically, that's what we're pitted up against. The coated abrasive does a nice job, but it's got a very short shelf life as opposed to the Osborn product or a wire brush. You're using the tips of the wire. So you get a lot more use, a lot more utilization out of that wire brush product.

TONI NEARY: It's also not going to remove stock right? 

RICH PEPERA: The brush does not remove stock. You can work on a part all day and a wire brush does not remove any measurable stock whatsoever. 

TONI NEARY: So looking at all the different uses and brush types out there, Osborn's been around for over 130 years. How have the products and technologies changed over that time to keep Osborn really leading in the industry?

RICH PEPERA: We've had a number of innovations over the years, not limited just to wire, but you've got to remember that Osborn is a full-service brush company. So we get into wire, we get into nylon abrasive products, we're into ceramics, we're into a number of things, and it drives us in terms of our application base.

We need to come up with solutions. We want to be known as a finishing solution supplier. That's what we do. 

TONI NEARY: Can we talk about the Honey Badger? 

RICH PEPERA: Absolutely. 

TONI NEARY: Tell us a little bit about that technology and what makes it so different. 

RICH PEPERA:  First of all, the Honey Badger is a product that we've developed recently. What that is is a stringer bead brush.

A stringer bead brush is a very narrow, knot style brush, typically used in weld preparation around welding. What we did is we took that concept of a single row stringer bead and doubled it. So in other words, you've got more face width now. So you can't use that on a typical pipe application because of the width of the brush. But for other applications in the grooves, in the areas where you need very aggressive cleaning and much longer life, this Honey Badger does a great job. 

TONI NEARY: That's fantastic. And I have to say, it sounds like there's definitely been some innovation over the 130 years of Osborn. So, can you tell us a little bit about just some customer success stories, some stories where you know that you've made a difference and really had an impact for those customers?

RICH PEPERA: You know, we face these every day, and I would be remiss if I just pointed out one there. There are from our salespeople, stories come in day in and day out of the cost savings that we provide with regard to brushing as opposed to other means of deburring. Brushes are very, very economical to use compared to, say, abrasive products or other methods of deburring.

So therefore, we win every day. Any time that we can get into an application and propose a brush over another type of product, we feel that we've saved the customer money and given them a better product. 

TONI NEARY: It's fantastic and it's partnerships like this that help make the entire industry better, right? We're looking at finding ways to be more productive and do that with a more cost-effective methodology.

And it sounds like Osborn's found a lot of those solutions. 

RICH PEPERA: Absolutely. And we're very, very happy to be associated with MSC and their team of really energetic metalworking folks. 

TONI NEARY: Rich, I want to thank you again for your time today. I think the conversation's been awesome and I know I've learned more about wire brushes for welding. 

RICH PEPERA: Absolutely, I did enjoy it. If there's anything else that I could ever answer, please don't hesitate to get a hold of me. 

TONI NEARY: If you also enjoyed today's topics and you want to find out more, you can go ahead and subscribe to our channel. But you can also go online to the website and see the full line of product offerings that we have available from Osborn, go to www.mscdirect.com/osborn. Thanks and we'll see you next time on Tooling Up. 

NARRATOR: Want more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the MSC Tooling Up video playlist to hear tips that can take your company to the next level. And subscribe to our channel so you won't miss out.