Pretreatment/ Cleaning

The best powder coating finish starts with clean parts. The substrate surface must be free from all old coatings of paint or powder, oil, grease, welding suet and rust. It is also important to apply a conversion coating to insure greater powder adhesion to the substrate. In conjunction with media blasting and non-abrasive stripping, CFC Powder Coating’s pretreatment stages make sure the parts you bring us are clean prior to powder coating. These stages include:

High-pressure, heated degrease stage to remove heavy oils, greases, and welding suet;
High pressure, hot water rinse to remove loose contaminants
Low-pressure, heated iron phosphatizing wash to apply conversion coating for better powder to substrate adhesion properties
High-pressure hot water rinse with rust inhibiters

We then place the parts in an oven at temperatures 20 degrees above the cure temperature for 15 minutes. This process, called “out-gassing”, removes most gases from the substrate, which were introduced during the formation of the metals, welding processes, or due to age and corrosion. This process helps to prevent those gases from penetrating the powder-coated surface and creating unsightly bubbles.

Pretreatment technology is constantly growing. We work closely with our suppliers to keep up to date on new products, equipment and processes to make sure your parts are properly prepared to receive the best finish possible.

We do incorporate seperate wash processes for aluminum and steel.