November 8, 2022

At this year’s FABTECH 2022, hosted at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, attendees were once again given a show floor mission to take an 18-gauge mild steel FABTECH memento and experience various finishing processes with participating exhibitors. This marks the fifth edition of the Chemical Coaters Association International (CCAI) FAB to FINISH Production Experience.

This live workshop featured several production routes that led attendees from Mazak Optonics Corp., where they pick up the laser cut piece to the Finishing Pavilion for a variety of finishing processes.

From there, the part needed to be cleaned and pretreated. Atotech demonstrated this step using its UniPrep D 205 LL, an alkaline immersion cleaner and Interlox 5705, a phosphate-free zirconium conversion coating pretreatment for multi-metal applications. Henkel was another exhibitor offering a pretreat process with its Bonderite M-NT 1455 wipes and a traditional liquid bath using immersion or spray equipment.

If you wanted to plate certain sections of the steel memento, Mighty Hook supplied high-grade masks to cover those areas and withstand the high heat curing step, while not leaving residue after removal. Mighty Hook also distributed a hook made from hard drawn spring steel to hang the parts.

For a powder coating, participants could visit Sames for green, Gema for white and Nordson for Red or Blue.
Trimac Industrial Systems offered a curing process with its electric infrared oven component of the Trimac Mini-Mobile System. Designed to roll in, plug in and go, the Mini-Mobile can powder coat and cure parts in five minutes or less.

To accent the masked sections, Quaker Houghton/SIFCO provided the SIFCO Process, which enables selective electroplating in a localized area without an immersion tank. After the curing process, the mask was removed and the exposed area was electrocleaned, etched and activated. A nickel strike was applied followed by a final plate deposit of a thin layer of Copper Acid 2050.