‘Qualicoat Meet at ESTAL’

Qualicoat UK & Ireland recently held their members meeting during the ‘European Surface Treatment on Aluminium’ (ESTAL) conference which this year was held at St Catherine's College, Oxford. The choice of venue for the meeting was obvious as most of the members were present at the conference as were many of the European powder coaters.

It was reported back to the Qualicoat UK & Ireland meeting that several new companies had expressed an interest in joining the association, some of who had already been given a preliminary inspection of their plant by Exova, the independent testing authority for Qualicoat UK and Ireland.

The latest issue of the Qualicoat standard was also mentioned and this version, the 12th issue, is now available as a free download from the European website at http://www.qualicoat.net.

Mo Panam of Barley Chalu, Chairman of Qualicoat UK & Ireland and representing the UK on the European Technical Committee gave a short presentation of where we were on some technical issues.

It is a reflection on the UK & Irelands standing in Europe that Mo had been asked at the last European meeting if he would like to stand as the Chair of the European Technical Committee.

There was a short overview of where Qualicoat UK & Ireland are with the further development of the ‘Seaside Class’ testing and research. It is hoped that the outcome of the project form part of the future standard.

Members confirmed that there continues to be an increase in the use of the ‘Qualicoat’ standard by specifiers. The new ‘Ask for the Qualicoat Standard’ was being adopted by users of Qualicoat powder coated profiles, panels and hardware.