At RIE the growing trend right now is customers asking us to coat over their zinc plated parts.  This is certainly not new to us but as more and more companies migrate towards coated parts for better performance it is becoming more and more common.

 

The key to increasing the performance of zinc plated parts by coating with additional top coats all depends on the quality and thickness of the zinc plating.  RIE will always ask customers to ensure that the plating thickness is at least 2 to 3 tenths of a mil.  At this thickness we can attest to 1000 hours of protection per ASTM B117 salt fog test with 2 top coats and 250-500 hours of the same protection with one top coat.

 

RIE will do an inspection on nearly all orders that come to the docks that call out for coating over zinc plating.  On large orders we will randomly pull parts prior to coating to ensure proper thickness and plating adhesion.  Visual inspections for adhesion are always done through the process for large and small orders.

 

No pretreatment is needed on zinc plated parts as long as they arrive without oils, post plating sealers or waxes on them.

 

The coatings that RIE applies have excellent adhesion to zinc plated parts.  This is not the case for all coatings.

 

Add value and protection to your zinc plated parts by sending them
to RIE for additional top coats.