Following a recent investment of nearly £1/2 million at Euro Quality Coatings, the new electrophoretic (ecoat) facility is now up and running.

This process is widely used in the automotive sector and also has an application in any industry where a uniform and functional black painted finish with excellent corrosion resistance is required.

Being a male dominated area it was felt this was a very worthy cause and will no doubt become a feature every November onwards.

What a handsome bunch!

The bold investment in an e coating facility at EQC is nearing completion. The plant is now entering its commissioing phase and expected to be fully operational by mid November.

E coat is a process widely used in industrial applications particularly in the automotive sector because of it offers excellent corrosion protection and a consistent film thickness.

This process is also know as Electrophoretic Deposition, EPD, KTL coating, ed coating or Electrocoating.

The EQC process is a cathodic electrodeposition type which is most often used in automotive components.

Euro Quality Coatings recently powder coated these stylish Jewellery Trees for a well know high street retailer.

The pictures below show the boats being processed through the powder coating plant.

Getting the colour that you want in a powder coating is increasingly possible. At Euro Quality Coatings we work hard to find or match the powder coating colours that our customers want us to use on their products. If you require RAL, BS and NCS colour systems or colours matched against pre-coated metalwork (such as Corus Colorcoat Prisma) we will do our best to source the shade that you need.

Katie Smithson from Akzo Nobels colour and design team explains how they match colours in powder for their customers:

Colour is created by adding combinations of chemical pigments (that mimic the world’s natural colour pigments) to the base formulation at the start of the powder manufacturing process. A computer works out the combinations and concentrations of different pigments needed to produce specific colours. It can predict colours to a high degree of accuracy over a wide range. If we are matching a new colour we can choose the nearest approximation and then fine tune.

Frequently colours are made for customers, often working from samples the customer has sent in. These can vary from liquid paint to coloured paper and even to bits of a bicycle.

Some colours take longer to match; very strong colours like yellows and reds are difficult because the pigments are organic and break down under UV light. The team has to find a way of achieving the colour without losing performance characteristics such as durability and temperature resistance. Special effect paints such as metallic or sparkly are also tricky. As they are not solid colours, the appearance can change depending on what angle you are looking from. It’s definitely challenging.

Article adapted from Akzo Nobel powder coatings Review ‘10

powder coated red dragon

One of the advantages of having both a manual powder spray area and fully automatic conveyorised facilities is the flexibility it gives us to do both high volume parts and one off special items like the dragon.

Here are some pictures taken while the Dragon was being powder coated:

Due to sustained and increasing demand from our existing customer base we have decided to operate an additional shift starting from 1st March 2010.

This will result in shorter lead times and greater flexibility for customers.