Reliant News

Every month, we take a common question about powder coating and get an answer from our resident coating expert, Bruce Chirrey. If you have a question for Bruce, please send it to info@reliantfinishingsystems.com.

Question: How do I achieve a very thick coating on fence components that will be used outdoors in all types of weather?

Answer: There are two routes you can go to achieve a thick film coating. The first is to use a PVC powder coating. For a protective PVC coating, a primer must be applied first. If not, the PVC won’t adhere properly. When this happens, the coating can be peeled away from the metal part. After you apply the primer, the PVC powder is applied to a hot part until the desired mil thickness (usually 8-25 mils) is reached. The part is then reheated (typically to about 300°F) to achieve good flow over the entire surface. This PVC coating is not actually cured, as it is only melted enough to cover the part. It does not have the same characteristics as a fully cross-linked coating. The final coating is corrosion resistant, but not very tough. It won’t have good durability because it can be easily scratched and dented. This type of application isn’t recommended for high heat environments since the coating can be reheated and reflowed at higher temps.

The second route is to use a fusion bonded epoxy (FBE) coating. This is probably a better choice for fencing. The parts are heated to 400-450°F and sprayed. The powder is then allowed to cure in place. This technique will typically generate a coated finish that is 8-15 mils thick. The FBE finished part is very corrosion resistant and the finish is quite tough. However, since fence parts are going to be heavily exposed to sunlight, a second coat of polyester powder coating is needed to protect the FBE layer from sunlight degradation. This second coat is usually applied to a hot part that has already been coated with the FBE. After coating the heated part with polyester powder, a little added oven curing time will be necessary. This second coat can also be applied later, after the FBE coating has cured, but you may need to sand the FBE coating to insure good adhesion by the polyester top coat.

Thanks, Bruce! If you need help with your finishing results, please give us a call. Bruce and our other specialists can troubleshoot your process and help you get the best finishes possible. Contact us today.

If you are looking for more powder coating information – including tips and tricks, troubleshooting guides, and equipment maintenance schedules – check out our Resources page.

Every month, we take a common question about powder coating and get an answer from our resident coating expert, Bruce Chirrey. If you have a question for Bruce, please send it to info@reliantfinishingsystems.com.

Question: Occasionally I rub or scratch the fresh powder coated finish off of a small section of a part by accident while working with it after it has been coated. Aside from buying touch up paint to match the color I chose, is it possible to make a spot filler from the powder I was using? Someone I work with suggested using some rubbing alcohol and maybe a spoonful of powder to make a slurry, then applying it with a paintbrush and letting the alcohol evaporate before rebaking. Will this work? Thoughts on this or do you have a better suggestion? The areas I want to fill can be as small as a 1/16” square.

Answer: Touch-up can be tricky with powder coating. The alcohol method can work but might give you an unexpected result. Applying powder to the primary visual surface by any method other than respraying can give a halo-effect, a shimmer, or an uneven surface that may draw attention to the touch-up rather than disguise the original defect.

My simple answer for touch-ups is if it can be recoated, go ahead and recoat the whole part but with much less powder than was applied during the original coating. That way you have a consistency of powder film all the way around the part and no weird surface inconsistencies. If you just put a little powder in a corner, that’s different than on the prime visual area of the part. I have done corner touch-ups with q-tips and small brushes without the alcohol by applying powder to a part after it has been heated, then rebaking it at curing temperature for a few minutes. If you use the alcohol method, make sure the alcohol is completely evaporated. Otherwise, the touch-up and surrounding area can wrinkle.  

Thanks, Bruce! If you’re having issues with your finishing results, please give us a call. Bruce and our other specialists can troubleshoot your process and help you get the best finishes possible. Contact us today.

If you are looking for more powder coating information – including tips and tricks, troubleshooting guides, and equipment maintenance schedules – check out our Resources page.

You’ve prepped your part, applied the powder, and now you’re waiting to pull the finished product out of the oven. Maybe it’s a piece that your customer desperately needs or maybe it’s a part you’ve taken special care to finish for yourself. But once you take it out, instead of a beautifully smooth finish, you’ve got a ragged, pitted mess – your coating is full of pinholes.

What Causes Pinholes?

Pinholes develop from a process called “outgassing.” Pinholes occur during the cure – as the part heats up, gasses that are trapped on or inside the part escape through the powder, causing holes or bubbles in the finish. These pinholes are not only unattractive, they also allow moisture and corrosion to penetrate the coating and damage the surface.

Troubleshooting Outgassing: What To Look For

Understanding how pinholes occur and where they come from is key to preventing them. We’ll go over the main three causes and how best to troubleshoot them below.

Make Sure Your Product Is Clean

One of the primary causes of pinholes is surface contamination. Solvents, grease, mold release agents, and machine oil can all vaporize through the powder coated finish during the curing process. Leftover residue or improper cleaning can subject your part to a variety of finish defects, including pinholes.

Preventing this type of problem comes down to proper cleaning. Identify the contaminant(s) and remove them prior to applying powder. If the problem continues, you may have to add an additional pretreatment step to your coating process in order to achieve the level of cleanliness you need to avoid pinholes (for more information on pretreatment, read our article here).

Your Products – Or How They Were Treated – May Be To Blame

Cast metal parts made of aluminum, iron, steel, and brass are some of the most likely to have outgassing issues. With both die-cast and sand-cast parts, gasses can become trapped in the part during the pouring process. High-quality castings using premium metals will almost always have less entrapped gas.

Outgassing can also happen occur when a powder coated finish is applied to material that already has a zinc surface treatment, like galvanizing. During the galvanizing process, gasses can become trapped within the surface coating. It is the escape of these trapped gasses that can cause outgassing problems when curing galvanized steel parts that have been powder coated.

Pre-baking the part can solve this type of issue. Pre-heat the part before coating, then allow it to return to room temperature. We recommend the product be heated to a temperature slightly above your target curing temperature and held at temperature for a little longer than the part would normally be cured. While some parts are of such poor casting quality that this method won’t work, this solution is effective for the majority of outgassing issues.

In extreme cases, it may be necessary to modify the design of the part, impregnate the casting, or use a sealant during the production to get the best powder coating results. It may also be possible to use IR curing or change the coating to one that uses a time/temperature recipe that doesn’t result in the part’s mass being heated as intensely during the curing process.

Make Sure You Aren’t Applying Too Much Powder

Pinholes can occur with some powder coating materials when they are applied in one heavy coat of greater than average thickness. When this happens, gasses that escape during curing are released through the outer surface of the coating after it has begun to cure, causing imperfections in the surface that remain after the part has cooled.

Check your film thickness to make sure you’re aren’t getting too much powder on your products (we discuss powder thickness in our article on quality control testing). If the part requires a coating with a particularly heavy film thickness, apply 2-3 thinner layers instead of one heavy layer.

Some companies also offer coatings with enhanced flow characteristics that enable the coatings to remain liquid for longer periods of time during the curing process. Trapped gasses can escape harmlessly when the coating is still liquid. The coating will flow into the imperfections caused by the gasses’ exit and yield a blemish-free finish. These specially formulated coatings can also be used for applications where a thinner film thickness is acceptable but the parts’ outgassing cannot be eliminated.

Get The Best Finish With Proper Equipment And Training

Reliant Finishing Systems not only offers professional-grade spray booths and curing ovens to get the absolute best results, but we also offer a wide range of troubleshooting and training services. Whether you need a new system or want to improve your existing operation, we can help. Give us a call today.

One of the key advantages powder coating has over other finishing processes is how safe it is for the environment and for the people who work with it. Unlike traditional solvent-based wet paint, powder coating is considered a “green” technology that doesn’t generate harmful solvents or airborne pollutants. Compared to painting, powder coating reduces finishing line emissions, produces far less harmful waste by-product, and doesn’t pose a significant health risk to your employees or neighbors. Understanding the impact of these green benefits can help your business make the right choice when choosing a new finishing system—and help you gain support from your community.

Powder Coating Generates Negligible VOCs and No Real Air Pollution

A significant difference between industrial wet painting and powder coating is the presence of Volatile Organic Compounds, called VOCs for short. VOCs (like formaldehyde) are released into the air over time, either as the paint is cured or as it ages. VOCs damage the ozone and, if trapped indoors, can cause serious health problems to people exposed to them. Traditional liquid paint emits VOCs. Newer paint technology includes No-VOC and Low-VOC products, but these are often not capable of providing a finish that is adequately robust. By comparison, powder coated finishes are tough and durable, yet cause the emission of almost no VOCs. Powder coating media and powder coating in general is considered non-toxic, which it is why powder coating is strongly recommended if your finished product will be used or installed indoors.

Since powder coating is inert and produces almost no VOCs, applying it does not create harmful fumes or contribute to air pollution. While you will still want to spray inside a booth with a true filtered exhaust including HEPA filtration, you won’t otherwise have to duct the air from your booth to the outside atmosphere. Although powder overspray is considered a nuisance dust, properly filtered exhaust from a powder coating booth is clean enough to breathe, so you don’t have to exhaust the booth outside the shop space. This makes powder coating even more energy efficient because you won’t be wasting heated or cooled shop air by exhausting it to the outside atmosphere.

Powder Coating Produces Significantly Less Hazardous Waste Than Wet Paint

Traditional wet paint lines produce hazardous waste in two key areas: Retouching and Disposal. Because of the chemical composition of wet paint, coating defects often require costly reworks using solvents. These chemicals produce harmful fumes and the used solvents are considered hazardous waste. In addition, stripped and discarded paint may also be hazardous waste and should be disposed of properly – which can be an expensive and time-consuming process that many shops ignore.

Since powder is considered inert and does not require special handling or disposal, powder coating media is much safer to handle and isn’t hazardous to retouch. Fixing a mistake is also much easier (provided you catch it before curing). Instead of using harsh chemicals, if you find a mistake on a powder coated part, you can simply wipe the part clean or used compressed air to remove the uncured powder and reapply it. Any waste powder can be swept up and handled without special safety equipment, and it can be discarded with normal shop trash.

Powder Can Be Recycled

Powder coating is a two-stage process. First, your product is sprayed with powder using an electrostatically charged powder gun. The powder adheres to the part, but must then be cured inside a powder coating oven to melt the powder so that is flows together and locks onto the part. This process creates a strong and very durable bond that lasts and helps protect the metal underneath. (You can even increase this durability with different pretreatment methods – for more information on pretreatment, take a look at our Pretreatment Primer.) But what about the powder you spray that doesn’t adhere to the part?

The excess sprayed powder can be recycled using a process called powder reclamation. This works best when only one or two primary colors are used for your products, as multiple color changes can drive up equipment costs considerably (for more information, see our powder coating gun article here). However, if you are only using spray one or two colors most of the time, then you can see significant savings by reclaiming the powder overspray that gets trapped in the filters or falls to the floor of your spray booth. (For more information on how much powder you can reclaim to increase powder transfer efficiency, click here.)

Powder Coating Already Complies With Environmental Regulations

Because powder coating is considered non-toxic, is inert and produces negligible VOCs, it already meets or exceeds many national environmental protection standards. Although your shop will need to clarify with your local authorities, powder coating is considered safer and will not require the same level of oversight and waste disposal care that wet paint operations do. Also, because powder coating media doesn’t present a spill hazard, you don’t to invest in a paint mix room or storage room.  As long as the powder coating equipment you purchase meets national safety codes, your operation will already meet or exceed national environmental regulations.

All Reliant Finishing Systems’ Equipment Is Produced To Meet Or Exceed National Codes

If you’re looking for safe and effective powder coating equipment, look no further than Reliant Finishing Systems. Our powder spray booths and powder curing ovens are designed specifically for powder coating applications and can be customized to fit your shop’s exact application. Whether you’re a finish line manager seeking a turn-key automated powder coating line, an established powder coater in the market for new equipment, or a fab shop owner wanting to get started with powder coating, Reliant can help.

Have questions? Email us or give one of our systems specialists a call today or visit our Resources page.

As a job shop owner, powder coating specialist or coating line manager, you’ve probably dealt with unhappy powder coating customers. Dissatisfied clients can have a number of complaints: some customers are sensitive to price, others may be sensitive to turn-around times or coating mil thicknesses, others may be unhappy with overall finish quality or other issues. Unfortunately, you may not know why a customer is unhappy until the very end of the project or after the order has shipped. Whether they complain face-to-face, you hear about their remarks from someone else, or you see a negative review online, a dissatisfied customer can be frustrating to you and disruptive for your business. What’s worse, if you ignore them, it’s likely that a problem customer will only get worse. Business experts agree that when it comes to dealing with mad customers, there’s only one “right” way to react: Contact them, take some kind of action to address their grievance, and most importantly, act quickly.

What angers already-irritated customers most? Being ignored or left waiting too long for a resolution to their problems. By responding to a customer’s complaints, you validate their need to be heard. Let them know your business is willing to listen. Approach your customers with genuine concern. View customer complaints as opportunities to demonstrate your shop’s commitment to customer service. A positive, friendly outlook will likely win over frustrated customers – as long as they have realistic expectations.

Reliant Finishing Systems builds and sells powder coating appliances. They deal with customers from around the world through various websites and conventional resellers. Their staff monitors digital media constantly to provide quick responses to customers who publicly voice their dissatisfaction. They also actively contact buyers within days of providing equipment so they can learn about potential problems before they get out of hand.

When dealing with their customers, powder coating shops can assure customer satisfaction by using a similar approach. Don’t use the “No News Is Good News” approach. Have an employee or third-party company proactively reach out to all of your customers to find out what they really think about their experience with your company. By documenting all of the comments–not just the good ones–you can get a better picture of what you’re doing right and where you need to improve. Some problems are truly isolated cases of miscommunication or poor performance, while others may be part of a larger issue.

One area that powder coating shops can immediately increase customer satisfaction is through improved quality control. Many of the complaints you are likely to receive will be due to a perceived lack of finish quality, whether that is poor coverage, uneven application, bubbling, or other coating issues. By adding a rigid and consistent quality control regimen to your process, you can catch many mistakes long before they reach a customer, saving you time and increasing customer satisfaction. (For more information about adding quality control to your process, check out our Introduction to Powder Coating Quality Control Testing.)

Grow Your Business With Increased Customer Satisfaction

Michael Schuerer, President of Reliant Finishing Systems, believes that attention to customer service has helped the company’s rapid growth. “It’s important to constantly listen for negative feedback and approach it rationally when you encounter it. We’ve found that it’s easy to get defensive or discount what a particular customer has to say, but that doesn’t help you grow your business or improve your brand. Sometimes you just have to pause and look at the situation with a fresh perspective. Successful companies treat their customers with respect, even when that proves challenging. Reliant wants to make sure our customers are pleased with both the equipment and the support they receive from us, so we try hard to assure that our customer service decisions are fair and thoughtful.”

Reliant recently had a frustrated customer post something negative about the company on Facebook. Within a few hours of his post, the company called to resolve the issue. That level of awareness and responsiveness can help you grow your reputation, but it takes consistent effort. It also takes patience to remember that you’re dealing with real people who can be very emotional once they’re unhappy. It may be difficult to address a customer’s complaints, but it’s worth it in the long run.

Even if your shop’s budget prevents you from hiring a PR firm or performing elaborate customer satisfaction surveys, there are three things you can do to help keep your reputation intact:

BE AWARE. Go to business expos and civic meetings that your customers attend. Listen to what’s being said. Try to interact with customers in a way that makes it easy for you to learn just how happy or unhappy they are. Set up notifications on your Facebook page and any other online outlets you use to interact with customers or sell online. Check your pages and your customers’ blogs or forum comments routinely to make sure they are happy with your company.

BE ACTIVE. Reach out to frustrated customers immediately. If nothing else, let them know you’ve received their complaint and you’re company is working to resolve it. Problems are usually much easier to work out if the customer gets a personal touch. A face-to-face meeting is better than a phone call, and a phone call is better than an email or private message.

REMAIN ENGAGED. Keep in touch with unhappy customers to resolve their issues and, when appropriate, offer compensation for their time and trouble. Sometimes a simple apology is all that is needed. At other times you may need to consider reworking bad parts or offering a discount on future orders. By staying involved with your customers, you help assure that their complaints are resolved—and that you have the opportunity to do work for them in the future.

By staying engaged with problem customers and proactively reaching out to your existing clients, you can not only help solve their issues – you can help identify areas where your company does need to get better. A company that is known for helping to solve problems, reacts positively to critique and works to actively improve their relationships is a company whose reputation will grow and whose business prospects will increase.