About Us

Diversified Enterprises was originally formed in 1986 with the specific and sole purpose of providing products and technical support for quality control, production, and research personnel requiring accurate surface energy measurements of non-absorptive surfaces. The primary markets were package printing and other plastics converting operations. Initially, all I sold were two ounce wide mouth bottles of surface tension test fluid, and cotton applicator swabs. Smaller and larger bottles were added by demand. In 1990, we also started selling treater sleeves, and debuted the ACCU DYNE TEST™ Marker Pen, which, through repeated validation over 30 years and countless millions of tests worldwide, has proven to be the most reliable and highest value "dyne pen" on the market. Its introduction sparked a new life into the business, and many new markets and end-use applications have followed.

This gave birth to a rewarding and challenging period: By 1996, five people were working full time in what should have been my house, so we moved from the hills of Vermont to Claremont, New Hampshire, where we are still located. In the meantime, we'd started selling technical books regarding surface treatment and measurement, inks and coatings, printing and packaging technologies, and a variety of related fields, through the PolySurfaces Bookstore. That was a rewarding experience, allowing us to amass a good library of information on surface energy-related topics, and we continued selling those books for over 15 years. We've largely exited that field due to ever-expanding interest in our dyne testing products and expertise. (But we do still have a number of volumes available at great prices!)

During the early part of this same period, we also started manufacturing the Diversified Drawdown Platform and introduced ACCU COAT Applicators™, as well as picking up several process and quality control equipment product lines that we offer to this day. These include tensiometers, metering rods, wet film gauges, Zahn viscosity cups, stroboscopes and tachometers, ACCUSPLIT stopwatches, packaging and dispensing bottles, and a number of other items.

In 2001 we launched dynesonline.com and accudynetest.com - two separate websites because we did not initially expect to support internet sales of dyne testing supplies. I found that the demand for online ordering of ACCU DYNE TEST™ Marker Pens and surface tension test fluids from our existing customers was a bit overwhelming, so not long after, we updated the dyne testing site to include an order cart. We thank all of you long-term and new customers who have utilized it ever since!

In 2007 we published a large database of polymer and liquid tables, which document a variety of material attributes, including surface tension, surface energy, solubility parameters, and viscosity. These tables have been referenced in a number of scientific publications. All along, we have continued to expand our searchable bibliography, which covers the treatment of polymer surfaces, and the methods used to measure the effects of these surface modifications as related to surface energy and adhesion.

The period since has seen a notable upswing in international sales, as well as a marked increase in interest in testing surface energy as a proxy for evaluating the cleanliness of metals (it works great, because contaminants like processing oils have such low surface energies), and this combination of logistical challenges and new markets keeps us plenty busy! So far, we're still just six people strong (and we've all been here a long time), but we almost always manage to keep up day to day with your emails, orders, and phone calls, and we intend to maintain that level of excellence we have held ourselves to for nearly 30 years now.

In 2015, we introduced this new, integrated website. I hope you like it. It is intended to accommodate mobile users especially, as the original template did not allow for this. We would appreciate any feedback any of you have.

As always, thanks for reading and being here, and we'll be happy to help with any of your questions or comments.

Russ Smith,
President

Diversified Enterprises
603-543-0038