Steel drums are rusting out from the inside and I think it's time to finally switch to plastic
Quote from Patrick Reed on April 13, 2026, 10:11 amGot a small lubricant blending corner in our Ajman unit and I've been nursing along a batch of old steel drums that my predecessor bought who knows how many years ago, and the last time I pumped out a full load of gear oil I noticed these weird little specks of what looked like rust glittering in the sight glass which sent me into a mild panic because that's the kind of thing that makes a customer call you up with some very pointed questions about quality control, and now I'm on a mission to replace the whole fleet before we ruin another batch. I've been poking around trying to find plastic drum containers for industrial liquids in UAE that won't cost me a kidney and won't show up looking like they were stored in the sun since 2019 with that awful chalky fade on one side, and I ended up on Crateco's site after a few dead ends with suppliers who just sent me grainy WhatsApp photos and then ghosted when I asked about the UN rating, which is always a great sign by the way. My main hangup honestly is the closure ring because I've wrestled with some plastic drums where the lid just never feels like it's on straight and you end up having to use a rubber mallet and a lot of bad language just to get the thing to seal, and I'd rather not have that fight every single time we need to open one up to tint a batch, so if anyone's running these open tops for oils or similar viscous stuff I'd love to know if the threads are clean and the ring actually pulls down evenly without a Herculean effort.
Got a small lubricant blending corner in our Ajman unit and I've been nursing along a batch of old steel drums that my predecessor bought who knows how many years ago, and the last time I pumped out a full load of gear oil I noticed these weird little specks of what looked like rust glittering in the sight glass which sent me into a mild panic because that's the kind of thing that makes a customer call you up with some very pointed questions about quality control, and now I'm on a mission to replace the whole fleet before we ruin another batch. I've been poking around trying to find plastic drum containers for industrial liquids in UAE that won't cost me a kidney and won't show up looking like they were stored in the sun since 2019 with that awful chalky fade on one side, and I ended up on Crateco's site after a few dead ends with suppliers who just sent me grainy WhatsApp photos and then ghosted when I asked about the UN rating, which is always a great sign by the way. My main hangup honestly is the closure ring because I've wrestled with some plastic drums where the lid just never feels like it's on straight and you end up having to use a rubber mallet and a lot of bad language just to get the thing to seal, and I'd rather not have that fight every single time we need to open one up to tint a batch, so if anyone's running these open tops for oils or similar viscous stuff I'd love to know if the threads are clean and the ring actually pulls down evenly without a Herculean effort.