Fabricators
Powder Coating for Fabricators and Welding Shops
You build it, we finish it. We work as the finishing department for fab shops along the Front Range, so your frames, rails and enclosures come back coated and ready for your customer.
Your finishing department, without the overhead
Most fab shops don’t want a powder booth and an oven taking up floor space and attention. We have been doing that part for about 20 years. You weld the parts, we prep, coat and cure them, and they come back ready to ship to your customer.
We coat with Cardinal powders on a batch line with rolling racks and a large batch oven. Because there is no conveyor, mixed loads of odd-shaped weldments are normal work for us, not a disruption. Daily throughput runs from 500 to more than 2,000 parts depending on size and masking.
What we coat for fab shops
If it is steel or aluminum, welded or bent, and fits the oven, it is usually a good fit:
- Frames and stands: machine bases, equipment skids, carts, racks and display fixtures
- Railings and handrail: stair rail, guardrail sections, balusters and post assemblies
- Gates and fence panels: driveway and pedestrian gates, security panels, bollard covers
- Brackets and mounts: gussets, clips, angle brackets and mounting plates in production quantities
- Enclosures: sheet-metal boxes, cabinets, guards and covers
- Structural pieces: smaller beams, columns, base plates and weldments within the oven envelope
Our process is built for metal parts that can be electrically grounded and withstand the cure temperature. That is typically around 400°F at the part, depending on the powder. If an assembly has rubber, plastic, bearings or wiring installed, plan to install them after coating, or ask us about industrial liquid painting.
Prep: what we expect and what we handle
A good finish starts at your welding table. This is the split that works best for both shops:
| Condition | Your shop | Our shop |
|---|---|---|
| Weld spatter and slag | Grind or chip it off. Powder will not hide it. | Sanding of minor spots, quoted if more cleanup is needed |
| Anti-spatter spray | Use a silicone-free product if you can | Solvent wipe and multi-stage wash |
| Oil, cutting fluid, shop dirt | Nothing special needed | Degrease and wash |
| Mill scale, rust, laser-cut oxide | Tell us on the RFQ | Blasting through our partner, quoted as part of the job |
| Porous welds, galvanized, castings | Tell us the substrate | Outgas pre-bake before coating |
| Threads, bores, grounding pads | Call them out on the drawing | Masking and plugging |
A few points behind the table:
- Spatter shows. Powder flows out smooth over the surface, which means it also outlines every bump under it. A spatter ball that is still on the part will show as a blemish in an otherwise clean finish.
- Silicone anti-spatter causes fisheyes. Silicone transfers by touch and creates craters in the coating. Silicone-free anti-spatter is sold for parts that will be painted or coated. We clean every part, but the safest path is keeping silicone off it.
- Scale is not dirt. A wash removes oil. It does not remove mill scale on hot-rolled steel or the oxide left on oxygen-assist laser-cut edges, and coating over mill scale or laser-cut oxide is a known cause of adhesion failure, because the wash and pretreatment can’t bond to it. When the finish needs that scale removed, we arrange the blast through our partner and you get one quote and one PO. See prep and masking for the full list.
- Welds and galvanized can outgas. Air and moisture trapped in weld porosity, castings or hot-dip galvanizing escape during cure and leave pinholes. A pre-bake before coating helps. For galvanized railings, see powder coating galvanized steel and castings.
Design tips that save money and rejects
You can head off most finishing problems in the design or at the weld table.
Vent sealed tube and box sections
A fully welded tube or box section traps air and wash water. In the oven, that trapped air expands and pushes out through the smallest gap it can find, usually a pinhole in a weld, blowing a crater through fresh powder. On a multi-stage wash, a vented section also takes in wash solution, and anything left inside can boil out during cure and blister the finish. Drill vent and drain holes in each sealed section, ideally near the ends, so air can escape and wash water can drain out. If hole location matters for looks, tell us how the part will hang and we will suggest a spot.
Give us a place to hang it
Every part hangs from a hook or rack, and the contact point stays bare so the part can ground. A small hole or tab in a non-visible spot gives us a clean hang point and keeps contact marks off the show face. If the part has no good spot, mark on the drawing where a contact mark is acceptable.
Watch tight inside corners and fits
Deep inside corners, narrow channels and boxed gussets resist powder because of the Faraday cage effect, and they take longer to coat well. Open them up where you can. Also remember that powder adds film. Cardinal’s data sheets list test film builds of roughly 1.5 to 3.5 mils for most standard powders, so mask telescoping posts, slip-fit sleeves and tapped holes, or size them for the coating. Our guide to designing parts for powder coating goes deeper.
Turnaround that keeps your customer happy
We plan around your customer’s ship date. Standard jobs typically run about one week. Blasting, heavy masking or a custom color can add time, and we flag that on the quote so you can promise a date you can keep.
For shops in the Denver and Pueblo areas, pickup and delivery can be arranged.
Built for repeat work
Many fab shops run the same parts over and over: a bracket family for an OEM, the same rail profile on every job, a standard enclosure in two colors. Reference the earlier job or part number when you reorder so we can match the same color and masking. On higher-volume programs we follow your QC procedure, and we provide Certificates of Conformance on request.
Need part numbers or legends on a coated enclosure? We can coat the parts, send them to our screen-printing partner and deliver them finished on the same PO.
Getting a quote
Send drawings or photos, material, quantity, color (a Cardinal code, RAL or sample) and your due date through our request a quote form. Mention any spatter cleanup, scale or blasting needs and anything that must stay bare. A complete RFQ gets a faster, tighter quote.
Common questions
Do we have to grind weld spatter before sending parts?
Yes. Remove spatter and slag before the parts ship, because powder will not hide it. We can sand minor spots, and if a job needs more cleanup than that, tell us on the RFQ and we will quote it.
Can you remove mill scale or laser scale?
Our wash removes oil and shop dirt, not mill scale, rust or oxide scale on laser-cut edges. When the finish needs that scale gone, we coordinate an abrasive blast with our blasting partner as part of the coating job and include it in one quote.
Do you sandblast parts without coating them?
No. We only arrange blasting as one step of a job we are coating. If you only need blasting, a dedicated blast shop is the better call.
How big a weldment can you coat?
Our large batch oven takes parts up to roughly the size of a large cabinet or a long frame. Size limits depend on the part's shape as well as its length, so send dimensions or a drawing and we will confirm before you quote your customer.
What is your turnaround for fabricated parts?
Standard jobs typically run about one week from when we receive the parts. Jobs that need blasting, heavy masking or a custom color match can take longer, and we tell you that up front on the quote.