Barton, Mid-Atlantic Coatings win SSPC Military Coatings Project Award of Excellence

Barton International, Glens Falls, N.Y., and Mid-Atlantic Coatings Inc. (MAC), Chesapeake, Va.—together with the U.S. Navy and Sherwin-Williams Protective & Marine Coatings—have earned the SSPC Military Coatings Project Award of Excellence for their work on aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). The award recognizes exceptional coatings work performed on U.S. military ships, structures, or facilities.

MAC holds the blasting and coating contract for the midlife refueling and complex overhaul of the USS George Washington in progress at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding division. Barton supplied more than 6,000 tons of garnet used on the project, including a new abrasive, 30/60 CG ADIRONDACK® garnet.

The aircraft carrier arrived at the Newport News shipyard in August 2017, but project planning started more than two years earlier. Under MAC’s leadership, two teams of equipment representatives and manufacturers were formed—a surface preparation team and a preservation team.

The MAC surface preparation team introduced vapor blasting technology to the Newport News shipyard. The first blast on the underwater hull and freeboard was executed using equipment supplied by Massachusetts-based Greener Blast Technologies, operated with Barton garnet abrasives. This method reduced abrasive consumption, reduced dust levels, improved worksite visibility, and enabled MAC to blast near adjacent work.

A second milestone in surface preparation at the shipyard was the use of garnet for the dry blasting rather than coal slag.