By: Robin Ford Wallace, Reporter

Two Dade businesswomen were the speakers at the Dade County Chamber of Commerce’s November luncheon, held Nov. 16 at Rising Fawn’s Depot Diner, and both had sweeping innovations to announce.

First, Brenda Gass of D&B Custom Powder Coating, a business in Dade’s Industrial Park, spoke about the new hydrographic process her company is launching, which she hopes will bring D&B – and, incidentally, Dade County – business from Volkswagen and other big manufacturers as well as expand its custom services for individuals.

“Right now we powder coat for individuals and companies, and that will be my goal for the new company as well, the expansion,” she said. “I want to do individuals, that’s the reason we’re custom, but golf carts, they’re doing 100 a month, which is fabulous. I want that business, so yeah, I’m going to get it.”

Powder coating, D&B’s current line of business, is a paint-alternative process, in which a dry colored skin is applied to metals and, more rarely, other materials, electrostatically. The powder coating forms a hard finish tougher than paint.

The new process, Hydrographics, involves floating the finish to be applied in a big tank of water – in D&B’s case 10x4 feet – and is not quite as fast as powder coating, but it allows the processor to apply complicated patterns to diverse materials. Metal, aluminum, wood, glass, practically anything can be “dipped,” as the process is called within the industry.

“Everybody’s seen the golf cart that’s got the camouflage, right?  That’s dip,” said Ms. Gass. 

The ability to coat practically anything in camo, she added, has already brought D&B a lot of potential business among the huntin’ and fishin’ crowd. Motorcycles, helmets, even drinking glasses can now be camouflaged. “Everybody’s called about the camouflage,” said Ms. Gass.

But Hydrographics has more than one trick in its bag. “So far I have about 227 different patterns,” said Ms. Gass. These include industry-specific motifs such as wood grain for auto panels as well as trendy patterns such as tree trunks, autumn leaves or human skulls, and some companies are using the process to make metal cabinet doors look like wood.

“There was a guy who had bought an RV and he wanted the countertops in the RV to look like granite,” said Ms. Gass. “So they took the countertops out and they dipped them. It even had the texture of granite.”

D&B has expanded its workspace another 100 feet and hired two new employees to accommodate this new line of business. It hopes eventually to employ still more. “We’ll probably wind up with five to eight,” said Ms. Gass.

She said the water tank should be installed this week, and as of the Nov. 16 luncheon two employees were in Texas training in the process. Ms. Gass hoped D&B would have it up and running shortly before Christmas.

In the process, a primer coat is first applied to the item to be “dipped”; then it is lowered into the tank through a floating polyvinol alcohol film printed with the pattern, which wraps around it and adheres to it.

“Any time anybody wants to come in, we’ve put windows on the outside so y’all can see exactly how it’s all done,” said Ms. Gass. She promised to announce demonstration times.

Next, Audrey Clark from TVNtv, the new subsidiary of Trenton Telephone, discussed progress in TVN’s push to bring Internet-based television service to Dade County.

“It doesn’t require a dish. It’s not exactly a cable. It’s a fiber,” said Ms. Clark. “For us it’s a brand new adventure.”

She said that TVN is “bundling” the new television service with its existing Internet service, which the new technology vastly improves. “The good part about it is, with the fiber, we can now have Internet service which offers speeds we haven’t seen here in our county,” said Ms. Clark.

Basic TVN television service is $24.95, said Ms. Clark. “We’re hoping to be able to keep these kinds of prices. We’re staying away from promotional features where you pay one price for three months and then you get your bill and it’s doubled,” she said. “You will see some price increases maybe in a year’s time, but that’s because of the networks’ increases to us.” 

She said TVNtv offers “practically every network that’s out there” and explained why packages sometimes include surprising choices: “You negotiate with these networks,” she said. “You run into these things where if you want to carry ESPN, which you really, really want, there are four or five other ones they’re going to require you to have.” 

Ms. Clark said the phone company is still feeling its way as it expands, learning which equipment works best with which networks, and is asking people to be patient and kind. “We’re looking at it as all good,” she said.

But the biggest challenge right now is simply getting the television service to everybody who wants its," said Ms. Clark. “That’s one of the reasons you haven’t seen us do a big launch about this, because we don’t want to disappoint a lot of people right off the bat. The county’s a large county, the way it’s spread out with all our little rivers and valleys and hills,” she said. “So it’s going to take a little while”

Currently, TVN’s television service is limited to Trenton as far north as the American Legion; up 136 East and including the top of Lookout Mountain; and Sand Mountain on Worley Chapel Road area where it connects with 89 and corners at 301. Ms. Clark said the company is laying equipment to expand into the Davis area and that South Dade is also in the near future. The Valley View Estates area, which historically has had problems getting any kind of telecommunications services, is another target, she said.

“We’re working on it desperately. We really hope to, in the future, cover all of Dade County,” said Ms. Clark. “For us, that’s quite an undertaking, because we are a locally owned business. We’re not Comcast, we’re not Charter. We’re doing our part, as much as we can do, for Dade County.”

Trenton Telephone is a privately owned, publicly regulated company first formed to bring telephone service into rural Dade and later to expand it throughout the county. It has since extended into DSL Internet and now into television.

The Chamber’s next luncheon will be at noon on Dec. 14 at Randy’s Restaurant.