Pretreatment
We carry out immersion chromate pretreatment to BS6496: 1984 (1991), a superior process which ensures optimum surface finish and paint adhesion. It is the effectiveness of this process which allows us to guarantee our powder coating for up to 30 years.Using a basket system, all metal is degreased, acid etched, rinsed, chromated, further rinsed (with demineralised water) and then drained and dried prior to jigging. This allows for a pristine finish to aluminium alloy (be that extrusion, sheet or preformed sections) in readiness for painting. There is minimal delay in between the pretreatment stages, and the process, whilst labour intensive, is surprisingly efficient.
The Pretreatment section also houses our stripping and strip anodising tanks (see Added-Value Services), which allows us to strip material which has been previously powder coated or anodised.
We have worked alongside our chemical suppliers for many years to continuously improve our pretreatment process as well as to address the environmental impact of our operations.