Once our development team has evaluated your requirements, we can help in all areas from the design stage up and suggest changes to seamlessly incorporate pre-finished into your production process. This might involve some of the following:
Product Requirement: evaluating your current materials and finding a pre-finished substrate and coating that will meet or exceed your needs.
Prototypes: being available at the conception design stage of a product and having samples and trial material available during the assessment stages.
Production: evaluating your complete production process to identify any design or manufacturing areas that would need to be modified to accept pre-finished materials. This would include advice on the various forms of fastening that can be used with pre-finished material.
Joining Techniques
Our development team can help you select the most suitable and cost effective joining technique for your application.
- Integral Joining
- Screws and Rivets
- Lock Forming
- Adhesives
- Welding
Integral Joining
Methods used with pre-finished metals, are those which do not damage the finished coating, such as the Tog-o-Loc method shown here.
Zero heat or fumes and a low noise level make these methods safer, cleaner and environmentally friendly, and provide a low cost yet strong and effective form of fastening.
Screws and Rivets
Screws and rivets can be used in more or less the same manner as they would be used for unpainted materials, and provide some of the simplest and effective methods of fastening.
These methods can join dissimilar materials, can have coloured heads to match the finished surface and are easily automated.
Lock Forming
Lock Forming is an effective technique where roll forming is part of the fabrication process. The grooved single lock seam is shown here but other types are used such as the standing seam, which like the lock seam can be either a single or double lock.
The advantages of this method include joining without additional hardware, and the ability to design in either a permanent lock or one with easy disassembly.
Adhesives
A range of adhesives is available which are suited to bonding pre-finished metals either to themselves or to other dissimilar materials. The chemically reactive types of adhesives include epoxies, urethanes, anaerobics, cyanoacrylates and acrylics and the advantages include:
- No visible fastening
- Excellent shear, tension and compression strength
- Vibration damping
- Distribution of stresses over a larger area than welding
- Provision of a sealed joint
- Easy Automation
Other bonds can be obtained by using products such as hot melt adhesives or pressure sensitive tapes.
Please ask our development team for more information.
Welding
Pre-finished steel can be successfully welded using certain types of welding technologies. The two major obstacles to welding are that the paint acts as an insulator and the heat generated by welding causes damage to the painted surface.
However, with the use of weldable reverse coat primers, welding techniques such as projection, resistance and capacitor discharge welding can be safely used without damage to the prime side coating.
Please ask our development team for more information.