Advantages and disadvantages of plastic coated materials
16 July 2018Plastic coated materials
I noticed this job going through the factory today so it has provided me with the opportunity to talk about the pros and cons of pre-coated materials. The customer called me and asked if we could manufacture a batch of 300 electric motor covers. This is not a difficult job for us here at V and F Sheet Metal so obviously the answer was yes! These covers were produced from mild steel with zinc coating on the underside. As you can see from the image the top face has a thick white plastic coating bonded to it and on top of this sits a low tac 4 thou (0.1016mm) peelable protective film. Whilst the cutting and and bending process takes place, the film actually stays in place and remains there whilst the components are being transported to the customer. It is removed at site by the customer.
Plastic coated flat blank
The flat blanks here were punched out using our Trumpf 3000R punching machine. This takes more time than using our Trumpf fibre laser but unfortunately in this case the plastic coated material (as seen here) is not suited to laser cutting. This would be the same for reflective pre-anodised reflector material or pre-painted metal.
Some of you may be interested in the material used for this job. In this case it was 0.9mm mild steel but with the coating on it measures 1.2mm. The coating is extremely durable and tough with a leatherette finish. It would be a good coating to use for something such as a radiator cover. Another advantage is that it is relatively cheap as it bypasses the need for another process such as powder coating. However, unlike powder coating it does leave exposed edges so is only suitable for interior settings.
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