We can offer powder coating and wet spray stove enamelled finishing in a vast range of colours through our long standing relationship with painting companies based in Portsmouth, Southampton Hampshire. Most colours, gloss levels and textures are available from stock in the RAL, BS4800 and BS381C colour ranges. The pictures here shown only a small range of the colours we powder coat and paint either individual sheet metal work items or sheet metal fabrications. We can finish equally well ferrous and non-ferrous materials to suit most of your sheet metal and tubular fabrication projects.
For more information on powder coating and paint types, colours and texture levels please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your options further. If necessary we can have samples painted for you to consider or have colours matched to your own samples.
What Is Powder Coating?
Powder coating is an industrial process that is used to coat a surface with a material powder by applying an electrostatic charge to the parent material and an opposite electrostatic charge to the powder coating gun/powder. The component being powder coated needs to be suspended by a hook so a design consideration will be where a small hole can be applied to your sheet metal component design or which hole already in the component can be used for this purpose. This hole will have a small hook witness so it’s worth specifying which hole we can use on your drawing if this is has a cosmetic impart on the final use of the component.
The sheet metal component for example with the applied powder is then heated (know as curing) in an oven above its melting point. The powder will then flow like a thick liquid to form a smooth film across all the surfaces initially covered with the powder. This film once dry will form a firm and relatively durable surface finish resistant to light scratches, cracking, peeling, UV rays and corrosion, if the surface coating is not compromised. The exact performance of the powder coated finish will depend on its chemical composition, the pre-treatments applied to the sheet metal and the operating environment that the finish components are required to be used in.
Power coating is now very popular for commercial components such as lighting fittings, office furniture, electronics and electrical enclosures, air conditioning housings etc. Powder coatings are available is a vast range of standard colours in the RAL and BSI ranges. Many powders are available with differing surface finishes such as leatherette, fine and coarse textures and metallic effects with gloss levels from matt, and satin through to high gloss. Special colours can be formulated but are more expensive and often attract a minimum charge for a box, so it’s always worth trying to keep to the standard colours available if possible when thinking about your new sheet metal fabrications.
If a powder coated finish is applied correctly it should be consistent across all surfaces with and drips, runs or bubbles. In general if you want your sheet metal components finish to have a good resistance to cracking, peeling and scuffing during assembly and in use then powder coating is a good surface finish to request. If you have a sheet metal component that needs a lot of intricate masking then powder coating may not be the solution and wet spraying of paint with an oven bake may be better solution.
