What Part Does Water Quality Play in Pretreatment?

Water may be the most important component in the pretreatment process. 95% or more of the pretreatment process chemistry is water. It is important to give some thought to water’s contribution in your pretreatment operation.

The primary role of water is to remove chemical/soil residue and contaminants from the work area, providing a contaminant free surface for optimum coating adhesion and performance. Therefore, water quality is critical to achieve your customers specified coating performance standards.

Directly related to your water quality are the impurities or contaminants that your water contains. One major problem area in the pretreatment process is high TDS (total dissolved solids) accumulating in the rinse water, and being deposited on metal parts during rinsing. When the water evaporates, these impurities are left behind. PH balance also needs to be maintained. Generally, the closer the PH is to neutral (7) and the lower the TDS, is when you achieve the best water quality.

Poor water quality results in:

• adhesion failure
• rust
• warranty claims
• excessive water treatment costs
• environmental compliance issues

Good water quality is an extremely important key to your pretreatment process, and should be monitored and controlled routinely, efficiently and effectively.

Have you researched the latest advances in pre-treatment, racking strategies and powder formulations? These advances do more than just increase the quality of the parts you deliver to your customers.

IntelliFinishing complete paint systems for manufacturers offers Lean automated finishing systems that increase your throughput by minimizing line gaps therefore decreasing waiting and transportation waste.

Our distinctive friction-driven (or as we call it, chainless) powder coating or liquid paint conveyor sytem is designed specifically for your manufacturing facility (with your provided specifications) to improve flow with dual lane ovens that optomize cure times with recipes to provide your customers with parts that are cured accurately and consistently every time.

Because it’s not a monument system, our automated paint systems allow for adjustment or expansion to your paint line as new products and processes are introduced!

Did you know that we have tours available? Centrally located in the United States, you can tour a powder coating system that includes a shot-blast spur, or a liquid coating facility to get a visual of what advanced technology can bring to your manufacturing facility. Or you can simply contact us to discuss your automated paint system needs.

Our friends at JR Custom Metal Products, Inc. of Wichita, KS are featured in Powder Coated Tough magazine this month with our “flexible” alternative to power and free finishing system.

Through extensive research that spanned over five years, the Martinez family learned everything they could about powder coating finishing lines before sealing the deal on an IntelliFinishing Complete Paint System with an in-line shot blast utilizing IntelliFinishing’s smart technology.

Traditional paint systems are limited by line speed. IntelliFinishing load bars are based on part specific recipes with variable line speeds possible at any point in the system. Learn more about IntelliFinishing’s unique line speed here.

Read the Powder Coated Tough article here.

As a manufacturing professional, you are responsible for optimizing your equipment. The better your equipment works, the better your quality and the higher your throughput. Your equipment should also fit your needs and be customizable based on your processes, which may change over time. An important process of many manufacturing lines is finishing, including liquid and powder coating. When considering finishing systems, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all option.

The finishing process in manufacturing is evolving, leaning more on technology to promote intelligent workflows. A key attribute you may consequently need in your finishing system, therefore, is flexibility. Flexibility in finishing systems translates to process, conveyor, and painting controls that allow you to configure the finish and your system for each part — individually. Read more

Outdated Finishing Systems

For the automatic finishing process in manufacturing, it’s no longer necessary to separate parts so that each must have its own conveyorized system. Recent and rapid technological advancements make it possible to finish parts of wildly differing sizes and processes simultaneously with each part process progression uniquely tailored to that part’s optimal process needs—all on one conveyor system. Read more