Screen Printing on Coated Metal Parts

Painted and powder coated parts often need more than a color. Control panels need legends. Enclosures need logos. Brackets and covers need part numbers, warning text or nomenclature. Running those parts through a coater and a separate print shop means two POs, two schedules, and somebody on your team driving parts across town.

We take that off your plate. We coat the parts in our Colorado Springs shop, send them to our screen-printing partner, get them back, and deliver finished parts. You deal with one vendor from quote to delivery.

What we coordinate

Screen printing (also called silk screening) pushes ink through a fine mesh stencil onto the part. It is a good fit for repeat production parts where the same artwork goes on every piece. Common jobs on coated metal:

• Panel legends and nomenclature: switch labels, indicator text, connector IDs, scale markings on front panels and control panels
• Logos and branding on enclosures, cabinets, housings and equipment covers
• Part markings: part numbers, revision letters, CAGE codes and other human-readable identification text
• Warning and instruction text: caution labels, voltage callouts, lifting points, torque notes
• Multi-color graphics, where each color is printed in its own pass

How the round trip works

1. Quote. You send the drawing, quantity, coating spec and print artwork. We quote coating and printing together as one price.
2. Prep and coat. We clean, mask and coat the parts to the specification on your drawing or PO. See our production powder coating service and mil-spec and CARC painting for what that covers.
3. Print. We package the cured parts and send them to our screen-printing partner with your artwork, ink callout and print locations.
4. Return. Parts come back to our shop for packing. On programs with your own QC procedure, we follow it before anything ships.
5. Deliver. We ship or deliver finished parts to you, with a Certificate of Conformance when you ask for one.

You get one ship date, one invoice and one person to call if anything changes.

What to send with your RFQ

The more of this you include, the faster we can quote it accurately. Upload files on the request a quote form.

If your drawing calls out a specific ink standard, include that note exactly as written. Defense drawings often call for silk screen or stencil marking in black epoxy ink per A-A-56032, the commercial item description for two-part catalyzed epoxy marking ink for metal. We flow that callout down to our printing partner as written. If your program requires approved or identified sub-tier sources for marking, tell us at quote and we will flow those requirements to the printer.

Design notes that make printing go smoothly

These come up often when a coated part also gets printed. Sorting them out at the drawing stage saves rework later.

Pick a printable finish

Screen printing lays down a thin ink film, so it reads best on smooth or fine-texture finishes. Heavy wrinkle or hammer textures can break up fine lines and small text. If you need a textured finish and small legends on the same part, talk to us before you release the drawing. Gloss and texture are part of the coating callout, so put both on the drawing.

Keep print areas flat and clear

Screens print best on flat, open surfaces. Leave room between legends and features like bends, weld beads, studs, PEM hardware and holes. Text that wraps over a bend or crowds a fastener is harder to print cleanly.

Mind the masking

If part of the surface is masked for grounding, fit or a bare-metal callout, make sure the print location sits on coated area. The prep and masking page explains how we handle masked areas.

Count your colors

Each ink color is normally its own screen and its own pass. One-color legends are the simplest and most economical. Multi-color artwork is fine, but it adds setup and handling.

Know what screen printing is not for

MIL-STD-130 allows several ways to apply a machine-readable 2D Data Matrix UID mark. In practice most are labels, laser marks or dot peen, because the symbol has to stay scannable for the life of the part. We quote the screen-printed human-readable text and leave the UID mark to that process.

Built for production runs

Screen printing pays off when the same artwork repeats across many parts, which suits the batch production work we do every day: runs of hundreds to thousands of parts for manufacturers and OEMs, fabricators and defense subcontractors. Repeat part numbers are simpler because the coating spec, artwork and print locations are already on file with us, so reorders quote and schedule faster.

We do take smaller jobs, subject to our minimum charge. For a deeper look at inks, cure and inspection, read our guide to screen printing on painted metal.