Powder Coat Failure on Aluminum Railings

A. Hi Dorothy. People don't like to jump into contract disputes, but neither your cars nor appliances, nor anything else I can think of has an appearance guarantee exceeding 10 years; I am rather certain that no car or appliance manufacturer would entertain any "responsibility".

But I don't think the expansion of water turning to ice, expanding the posts, could possibly cause such peeling. Fresh powder coating has more flexibility than that. I think it's just the age of the paint/powder; I've seen powder coating last much longer and I've seen it last much shorter.

Regards,

A. Hi again. If you'd like to send pictures of the tops of the posts maybe someone can guess, but I can't tell from what you've sent so far whether the posts extend all the way to the roof, or are only waist height with plastic caps on their tops, or whatever. Thanks.

Regards,

A. Looking at the small posts of your railing, the powder coating still appears to be good?

Perhaps the water you found was from the original 'pre-treatment' solutions which are used to clean and create a good adhesion bond for the final Powder coating top coat? Pretreatment washers use fairly high pressure from all angles to clean & apply conversion coatings to parts before passing through a dry-off oven and being Powder coated.

If that water was trapped in the large tubes, it would prevent the powder coating from fully curing in the cure oven and thus possibly explain the premature failure and not flexing with the tube expansion?

Just my CDN $0.02 thoughts....

A. I don't know if I am too late to add my thoughts, but I have been both an installer and sales professional for Powder Coated Aluminum/Metal products for decades. When deciding on what product to install, it is important to know what process they use to coat the substrate. Also keep in mind that generally speaking, steal will always rust. It is in its nature to rust. Even if you put the top of the line Kynar coating on it, all it takes is a ding or scratch to allow the raw material to begin its inevitable rusting process. As far as aluminum, Die-cast nickel, stainless steel or other metal substrates are concerned, they too can have some powder coating issues, if not prepped correctly.

When you get a chance to do some research, look up products that are CERTIFIED through a process code called PCI4000.

While many manufacturers are using a high-quality AMMA 2604 rated powder coat, which is great, they are not properly preparing the surface of the product to get a molecular adherence to the metal substrate.

www.powdercoating.org/resource/resmgr/certification/pci4000certificationguidelin.pdf

A. Hi. It's never too late here, Chris -- Thanks! Certification to standards is a great requirement. But we had to delete your suggestion of a particular vendor (why?)

Luck & Regards,

A. A year or so ago there was a letter and series of responses on an almost identical situation; try using the search engine and you may be able to locate it.

If I recall, the responses basically broke down to this: powder coating CAN do the job, but isn't necessarily the best finish without other steps being taken also (such as anodizing underneath the powder) and saying that the finisher "obviously knew because of xxx" doesn't mean nearly as much (legally speaking) as saying "the purchase order specified xxxx".

Good luck.

 Ed. note: Thanks for the reminder, Jim. Letter 34235, "Powder Coating Rusting Dispute", is probably the one you are referring to.

MY 2-CENTS ... DISGUSTED WITH THE INTEGRITY, CRAFTMANSHIP & QUALITY OF POWDER COATED FINISHES. WE ARE ALWAYS BEING SOLICITED FOR REFINISHING ALUMINUM RAILING ON OUR BEAUTIFUL SHORES HERE IN PALM BEACH. WE ONLY ACCEPT CLIENTS THAT ARE TRUE TO THEIR PROFESSION, OR REALLY WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. THERE ARE MANY POWDER COASTERS AROUND. I TRUST NONE! YOU HAVE TO WALK THE PRODUCT THRU THE POWDER-COATING COMPANY'S PRE-TREAT & BAKING SYSTEM OR THEY WILL CUT CORNERS.
ALSO ... FOR THE OPTIMAL ADHESION ON AN EXTERIOR ALUMINUM SUBSTRATE, MY EXPERIENCE TELLS ME THAT A LIGHT ETCHING VIA SANDBLASTING OR PRESSURE WASHING WITH SAND INJECTION IS A MUST PRIOR TO POWDER COATING (PRIMER)! THEN OF COURSE OTHER NORMAL REQUIREMENTS HAVE THE COATERS PRE-TREAT TO RINSE - LET DRY IN OVEN AND COAT PROMPTLY AND FOR AN EXTRA 10 MINUTES. SO MANY TIMES I HAVE HAD PRODUCT DELIVERED WITH FAILED COATING BECAUSE IT WAS NOT LEFT IN TO BAKE LONG ENOUGH. NOT TO LET IT SIT OUT OVERNIGHT SO IT CAN GET ALL DUSTY ! HEY MAYBE WE SHOULD OPEN UP A REFINISHING CO!

A. John,

Powder Coat over aluminum, if done properly, is an excellent finished product that will last for years, even in a coastal environment. My professional experience would lead me to believe that the railings were not properly prepped before the powder coat was applied. Pre-treatment errors will always show up as field failures. Also, you mentioned chalking. This is caused from using the wrong powder, plain and simple. Epoxy powders, though excellent for chemical and corrosion resistance, will chalk within 4-6 months of UV exposure. I would suggest for future projects that your company always hire a coatings consulting firm to perform process audits on your suppliers. This insures proper documentation and accountability are established in the event of a failure. Some consulting firms also offer proper coating selections for projects. Finally, it sounds like you have to re-finish what your supplier did incorrectly. For in place fixing, every square inch of rail will need sanding. Then apply a 2 part polyester wet paint for marine applications. Hope this helps and remember, always have process audits done on your coating suppliers by a professional. The cost is far less than field repairs.