How Industrial Ovens Can Fire Up Your Approach to Reprocessing Powder Coated Material
Ever since it was first introduced into a wide range of consumer and industrial applications in the 1960s, powder coating has provided a consistent quality of finish for a huge variety of objects. Especially when applied to metal products and components, it affords a level of scratch resistance that is superior to paint. However, this can also present a challenge when you want to recycle powder coated metal, perhaps to reprocess it with a new colour treatment by coating it once more.
Fortunately, hiring the services of an industrial oven makes a great deal of sense when preprocessing metal that has been powder coated. Let's look at how this approach to powder coated metalwork functions in greater detail.
Precision Working
Unlike other methods of removing powder coating, industrial ovens only work on the coating and not the piece being processed. This means that you get your metalwork back stripped down but fully intact and ready to be coated again. Professional thermal cleaning companies will know exactly how high to raise the temperature of their ovens for the sort of metal you want stripping of the powder coating. When they do so in a fully controlled way, the coating dries out and eventually combusts, leaving the metalwork beneath it in mint condition. All that remains is an ashy residue at the end of the process and this can be brushed off with ease.
Improved Practices
Unlike other forms of removing powder coating from metalwork, thermal cleaning in industrial ovens is perfectly safe. It takes a lot of elbow grease and determination to remove a layer of powder coating by hand with an abrasive cleaner. If you choose to sandblast instead, then the metalwork can easily become damaged as a result. Dipping metal into ponds of chemicals is another option to consider, but this tends to mean that you are working with a highly toxic material that has serious health and safety implications. On the other hand, an industrial oven works effectively and quickly.
Economical Powder Removal
Opting for industrial thermal cleaning services make sense if you have a number of powder coated items that need to be cleaned at the same time. This is because the major cost involved in the process is the energy that is used. As such, it is better to have several items and components cleaned in the oven simultaneously than taking a one-by-one, piecemeal approach. If you only have a few bits of metal which need their coatings removed, then a contractor will usually put yours in with another customer so that you both achieve a cost benefit.