Top 5 in 365—Articles about finishing

Matthews Industries automated its powder coat application process to improve productivity.

The last installment of “Top 5 in 365” showcased the five most-popular articles on thefabricator.com published within the last year about cutting and weld prep. Previous installments have focused on bending and folding, laser cutting, arc welding, assembly and joining, automation and robotics, and consumables. This post is about the finishing category on the website. How do you achieve the desired and often specified finish? Does it require contracting the process out or adding to your existing processes and equipment? Finishing comes with many important considerations. Here are the top five most-read articles in the past year that discuss this important aspect of most fabricating jobs.

5. A powder coating primer for metal fabricators

It’s a common story. A fabricator analyzes how much time parts spend in each process. Laser cutting, bending, welding—these and other in-house departments usually can be measured in minutes and hours. But send parts to outside subcontractors, and the time is usually measured in days, sometimes weeks. No wonder so many fabricators choose to bring many services in-house, including powder coating.

When a fab shop launches a powder coating department, equipment is important, but most important of all is process knowledge. A coating operation can’t be effective without it.

4. Rethinking the coating and pretreatment relationship

While other coating and pretreatment suppliers look for new compounds that can replicate the performance of old compounds now outlawed because of environmental regulations, others saw an opportunity to pursue a new approach to parts cleaning and painting. That’s how Rugged Coatings brought Intuitive Coatings and CleanWirx together.

3. Automating powder coat system, adding IR curing accelerate productivity

Matthews Industries offers fabricating, welding, coating, and assembly services in the manufacture of compressed air systems, food service equipment, HVAC/refrigeration components, cabinets and electrical enclosures, industrial valves, and consumer products. Company leadership realized efficiencies in its finishing line and eliminated bottlenecks by installing automated powder coating application and an electric infrared preheating system, thereby doubling line speed and output.

2. Engineering expertise drives growth at Royal Welding

Good engineering practice drives everything at Royal Welding & Fabricating, a custom fabricator in California. It can be seen in the design of some of its tanks and vessels, as well as its manufacturing processes on the floor—including grinding and polishing.

1. 4 reasons automated deburring might be the right choice for your shop

With the extensive variety of deburring systems available, it can be exceptionally challenging to determine which one will work best for your specific production requirements. Each part profile, finish, thickness, and type of material can introduce unique challenges, expenses, and constraints to your cutting and smoothing efforts, which complicates the decision even further.

In many cases, professional metalworkers manually deburr parts while their machine works away at the next plate. However, regardless of how skilled you are at manual deburring, it’s impossible to match the speed and consistency of automated deburring systems. In fact, hand grinding could be hampering the overall productivity and profitability of your organization.

Next up? Manufacturing software.