february 2007
The Qualicoat (UK & Ireland) Association recently held their members meeting in Ireland at the Malone Lodge Hotel. The meeting was well attended with 15 companies present, representing the major powder coat manufacturers and coaters in the UK involved in pretreatment and coating aluminium profiles for fenestration use. The Qualicoat (UK & Ireland) Association represents the higher coating standards from Qualicoat Europe which are now commonplace across Europe.
The Qualicoat standard offers specifiers of polyester powder coating for fenestration and construction use, a simple to understand specification to ensure the highest levels of quality are obtained. More importantly members of the association have their quality checked by an independent testing house to ensure Qualicoat standard is maintained.
During the meeting the guest speaker, and member of Qualicoat, Alan Green of Chemetall, offered a presentation on the technical and practical aspects of non-chrome pre-treatment. Such systems have now been in use for up to fifteen years and quality and effectiveness have developed to be comparable with chrome systems. The rapid growth of such systems in Europe, including adoption by a number of Qualicoat (UK & Ireland) coater-members, will continue. Members feedback was positive to learn that such effective high quality alternatives to chrome are available as increasing safety and environmental regulation will put pressure on the continued use of chrome systems.
Along with other technical and practical issues discussed, members enjoyed the time to network and catch up with news about the wider industry.
