Powder Coating Laser Cut Edges

Pretreating laser cut material for powder coating.

Powder coating laser cut edges.

The chipping reject. Machine sits in the middle of four laser cutting machines. The danger of powder coating laser cut edges. As steel is cut with a laser a very thin hard oxide is formed on the sharp edge.

The parts have a carbon build on the edges our present system is an alkaline rinse phosphate rinse seal. We have a bystronic bysprint 3015 6kw fiber laser cutting machine at our main facility in petersburg which can cut sheet sizes up to 5 x 10 1500 x 3000 mm. The chipping you refer to with powder coating is a loss of adhesion due to little if any pretreatment on the laser cut edge. Nitrogen purity levels play a large role in edge and part quality.

The parts are laser cut and powder coated. The absence of oxidation improves downstream processes such as powder coating and welding because better adhesion and weldability can be achieved. Wayne duguay houston. We have started manufacturing parts using a laser.

Powder coatings don t like to adhere to this oxidized surface. An ongoing discussion from 1999 through 2015. Laser cutting machines provide manufacturers with an effective means to cut blanks of all shapes with burr free edges in a matter of seconds. After reading many different views on this and my own opinion is that paint will not adhere fully to a sharp edge.

This system will not remove the carbon. The only way around this would be to put a chamfer onto all sharp edges this is a massive cost and process change. Laser cut material edges are typically high quality but there will be a minor burr on the bottom side of the cut. When chipping was first seen on powder coated parts many people thought it was because the edge was so sharp.

To avoid paint chips on the finished part edge remove the laser scale prior to finishing. Nope this is a first time question. Today the 107 5 by 59 1 by 60 2 in. When oxide scale created by laser cutting is painted over the part being finished is susceptible to adhesion failures.

Truthfully some of the lasers are cutting with nitrogen most of the time but for those laser cut parts with an oxide layer on the edges the machine is more than able to keep up with the parts flow. Laser cutting is a thermal process and. You can improve a fiber laser blanking s cut edge by optimizing the assist gases and nozzle technologies. Acid pickling is one method that coaters can use to prepare their laser cut parts prior to finishing them.

The issue with paint adhesion in this area is due to the formation of heat scale on the edge of the steel. Powder coating systems give manufacturers an environmentally friendly and cost effective way to apply a finish to metal products that stands up to the rigors of the most challenging environments.