Powder coating facilities include a comprehensive four-stage process. Built to our specifications, the powder coating plant is located at our Basildon headquarters and manufacturing premises. It represents a significant investment that reflects our growing business and increased customer demand.
The powder coating plant consists of a phosphate and degrease unit, drying oven, spray booth and curing oven. The powder coating plant gives us greater control over quality and production scheduling. This will result in even better products and faster lead times.
Powder Coating – Degreasing and Phosphating
The first stage of our Paint Plant is the degrease and phosphating machine. This thoroughly cleans the raw product to ensure good adhesion of the powder coat. This also pre-treats to protect from corrosion. This process takes between seven and eight minutes. It includes three active chemicals.
There are three phases to the degreasing and phosphating process: wash and phosphate application, a sacrificial rinse followed by a final rinse.
Daily checks on the chemical levels ensure this process is effective and consistent.
Powder Coating – Drying Oven
The second stage of our powder coating line is to dry the raw product as soon as it comes out of the degrease and phosphate procedure. This takes place in our gas powered drying oven. This short process takes only three minutes (at 80°C). It is undertaken immediately after stage one to ensure no flash rusting occurs.
The products are suspended from specially constructed frames throughout the powder coating line. These frames ensure that every part of each component enjoys full exposure. This continues throughout the degreasing and phosphating, drying, powder coating and curing process.
Powder Coating – Spraying Booth
A Powder Coat is applied manually in our Spraying Booth. We actively chose the manual process over automated alternatives. We believe that this offers greater quality control.
We currently powder coat in six colours but can accommodate any customer requirements from the full RAL paint colour spectrum. Our currently used colours are RAL 9010, 9016, 9006, 9003, 9005 and our performance-enhancing J-Lux finish.
We only use high quality powder coating paints to give the result our customers demand. All products being sprayed are suspended via a full metal-to-metal method. This guarantees the electrostatic process functions fully. The powder coating is sprayed from a compressed air spray gun utilising an electrostatic charge. The powder receives a positive charge. This positively charged powder is then powerfully attracted to the grounded (negatively charged) product.
Excess powder coating is safely drawn away by powerful extractors. Excess powder coating is then filtered via large cone filters. These filters are cleaned daily by an automated high-pressure pulse method. This is a quick means of enabling rapid colour changes. The efficiency of this system prevents colour contamination.
Spray to waste disposal is utilised for safe disposal of excess powder.
Powder Coating – Curing Oven
The final stage in our powder coating line is the curing oven. This highly efficient, gas powered oven cures (by melting) the dry powder coating onto the surface of the component. This is done in 11 minutes at 200°C.
The resulting cured powder coating is durable, consistent and hard-wearing. The powder coating is of a very high quality.
Two layers of quality checks are undertaken. Only then are the finished components passed directly to production.
The speed and efficiency of our powder coating line means we are able to provide an effective Just In Time service. This increases our already streamlined production process, further reducing manufacture lead times.
