Home / Case study / RNE Pumps

Coated in Johannesburg.
Opened in Miami.

Pump shafts machined in South Africa for export. Six months from coating to opening. Zero corrosion on the treated shafts — while other items in the same container arrived rusted.

6months
Coating to opening — Johannesburg, December 2024 to Miami, June 2025
8–10weeks
Container freight, Johannesburg to Fort Myers — ocean transit and warehouse storage
0corrosion
On the treated shafts. Other items in the same container arrived rusted.

The challenge

RNE Pumps machine pump shafts in South Africa, then ship them by container to customers in the United States. Freshly turned mild steel is a magnet for surface oxidation: humid storage, salt air on the ocean leg, and weeks of warehouse time all add up to flash rust by the time the customer opens the crate.

The cost is invisible until you list it: warranty claims on parts that should look new, hours of rework before installation, complaints from customers who don't want to pay for cosmetic refurbishment on machined components.

The application

RNE coated a full container of pump shafts with Corrosion Assassin in their Johannesburg workshop in December 2024. The product was applied straight to the freshly machined steel — no degrease, no extra prep, no change to the existing packing workflow. Excess was wiped down and the shafts were crated as normal.

In transit

The container left South Africa on the standard ocean-freight route, eight to ten weeks at sea. It landed at Fort Myers harbour in Florida and was held in warehouse storage before onward transport to RNE's customer in Miami. End-to-end, six months passed between the day the product went on and the day the crate was opened.

The result

The crate was opened in Miami in June 2025. The treated shafts came out exactly as they went in: clean machined steel, the iron-phosphate film still on the surface. Other items inside the same container — items that hadn't been treated — arrived rusted.

No customer rejection. No warranty workback. No rework hours on parts that were supposed to be ready to install.

How RNE uses it now

Three places: on freshly machined shafts before crating for international shipment; on shafts held in stock awaiting sale; and on pumps returned from mining environments for refurbishment, where it strips the existing oxidation before re-work. One product on the shelf, three jobs in the workshop.