How does the powder coating process work?
For the most part powder coating is a process that is used on metal surfaces, although new technologies have expanded this to include some woods and plastics. Whether it is done by manually racking and moving parts through each stage of the process, or whether they ride a conveyor system which moves them from stage to stage, achieving a quality coating on any part demands that every step in the process is included. The process starts with the pretreatment/surface preparation of the object to be coated. This can include sandblasting in certain situations, but in most cases it is simply cleaning the metal surface and etching it in some fashion to prepare the surface to bond well with the powder during the curing process that follows. The most widely used process includes washing the parts with an alkaline cleaner to remove grease, grit and grime, followed by a rinse bath containing an iron phosphate conversion coating. Sandblasting is used as an alternative or in addition to a washing an
