Powder coating masking advice
From the straightforward to those complex challenges, we are here to help
For a lot of masking on powder coating, the solutions are basic: Green polyester powder coating tape (400F) and silicone caps and plugs (600F). Add to that standard masking tape disk sizes and Viadon’s ability to create a wide range of custom masking squares and rectangles – often with no tooling charge – and those options cover a multitude of areas that must be powder-free.
Occasionally a higher temperature powder is applied, or the oven must be set to a higher temperature to get the part up to PMG (part mean temperature). In these cases, Viadon’s VOT orange polyester (425F) or polyimide & glass cloth tapes (500F) are better options as they can withstand the higher temperatures or longer oven cure duration.
But what about when the part has challenging geometry? A complex surface areas to mask? Requires both molded and tape masking components to cover an area?
This is where we excel at providing you with options. And you should know that we don’t always sell everything that is useful for masking - we're going to recommend what we thinkg will work for you, not like some companies that only push what they sell.
For example, sometimes a large piece of brown kraft paper or aluminum foil will cover a larger area, to be taped down at the edges. This can be a fast and lower cost means of masking big areas, or when the surface is not completely flat.
Perhaps a polyester bag can be placed over a complex shaft and taped around the bottom in typical oven cure temperatures.
In other cases, we may suggest what we can provide: A die cut shape that is entirely custom because the volume of parts you need to coat requires a large quantity, like when powder coating brake calipers - see image at right. We can get low-cost hard tooling to produce these in-house on our die cutting equipment – and we typically ship those die cuts the same day the tool arrives on our dock.
Maybe you only need a few dies cuts. We can make those on our plotter. Or, if you will need more of them over time, we can provide you with the pre-lined tape for you to use on your own plotter-cutter.
And when tape is not the right answer, perhaps a custom cap or plug is. From big to small, we can have tens of thousands of parts made… or ten parts from a single cavity mold. Or less! There are a few limits – the parts do need to be able to be made and removed from a mold, and there’s a size beyond which molded parts are both impractical and no longer cost effective. But a custom cap or plug can make for vastly improved throughput and efficiency in your process at times, saving both you and your customer money – and time.
The question then, quite simply is: How can we help you solve your unique powder coating masking challenge? We’ve seen thousands of masking jobs requiring everything from simple to innovative custom solutions and are here to help you figure out how to solve yours for the lowest cost and best efficiency for your needs.
Check out the molded and die cut masking solution we devised in the photo to the right ---->
We’ve been doing that since June 2000, and are ready to review your challenging masking problem. And we have all the stock masking tapes, caps and plugs to get you started – plus we send free samples for most of them:
Give us a call or send us an email to get going now.
Viadon. A cut above.