Letter 7030

Want info about Electropainting of car bodies

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I am the representative of a metal plating company in Turkey. Generally, we are serving the automotive industry including the companies BMC and FORD Turkey. Now, we are interested in electrophoresis plating for automobile industry. We heard about that this type of metal plating is commonly used under the painted parts of metals in order to increase the durableness of metals, especially at the parts which requires maximum protection against rust. We desire to use the same technology in our company. If you are familiar with this type of technology, we will appreciate your help!

Gokhan Erkavun
- Harrison, NJ, US

E-coat is a must on car bodies but it is a complicated process and for carbodies you need huge bath and expensive equipment.

One of the biggest suppliers in the world is PPG. Try them.

Sara Micaheli
Amza - Israel

There is two primary methods of electrocoating metal products, anodic and cathodic.

The current method used by most automotive companys is cathodic. Some of the advantages of electrocoating are: protection of recessed areas, high transfer efficiency, lower labor cost, consistent coating. Some of the disadvantages are only electrical conductive products can be coated, high voltage electricty is used, a second coat may not be applied after the first coat is cured.

The basic process starts with a five to eight stage washer system that removes all organic and inorganic materials from the product and deposits a phosphate surface to the product. The product is then immersied in a solution made of the electocoat paint, then using direct current the paint is deposited on the cathode(product). The product is removed form the electrocoat bath and the excess paint is removed from the product with another washer system which also recovers as much of the the excess material as possible. The product is then sent through an oven to cure the electrocoat paint.

BASF and PPG have many electrocoat tanks in operation.

John Fink
Northern Engineering and Management - Sterling, MI, USA

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