Anytime a customer expresses satisfaction with our coatings, what they’re really happy about is our surface prep.
They just don’t know it yet.
We’re called Kaser Blasting & Coatings because “Kaser Sanding & Pretreatment” doesn’t really have the same ring. But the truth is that surface preparation – sanding, grinding, washing, pretreatment – takes up most of our time and has a far larger impact on the quality of the end product than the powder itself.
Yes, powder coating quality matters, and yes, it requires tremendous skill to spray, but that’s roughly where the nuance ends. Powder specs all look the same after a while, with slight variations for film thickness and spray patterns; and as long as the coater hits those targets, they’re doing a good job.
The wash bay, however, is a minefield of variables.
Is the part oily? If so, is it an oil we’ve seen before? Are the chemicals we normally spray up to the task of removing these particular unwanted substances, or do we need to try a different formula? Why is one part flash rusting while another is not? Have we successfully created a conversion coating?
Even before the part reaches the pretreatment stage, we’re checking it for dings, scratches, and unnecessary roughness. We’re sanding, grinding, and smoothing. We’re doing everything we can to create a hospitable surface.
Imagine you’re painting your living room. On one side, you fill in nail holes, sand down the spackle, and prime everything evenly. On the other, you don’t. Even if the quality of the paint (and its application) is uniform throughout the room, the results won’t be.
Why?
Because the prepared surfaces will far outshine the unprepared surfaces. That’s true for latex paint on walls, and it’s true for powder coating on metal parts.
If you’ve had a positive experience with powder coating (meaning that the coating looked great, endured for years, and kept your part from corroding), congratulations: the shop you selected pays attention to surface preparation.
At Kaser, we make surface preparation a priority.
