As one of the largest bulk metal finishing operations in the United States, Depor specializes in the application of high-quality, chrome-free engineered coatings on fasteners and small stampings. We offer a wide variety of coatings to meet our customers’ desired levels of performance.
Our coatings offer several benefits, including:
- extreme durability
- galvanic corrosion protection
- friction modification for repeatable torque performance
- no risk of hydrogen embrittlement
Application Methods
Dip Spin
Depor applies dip-spin finishes using several steps. After pre-treatment, we load the fasteners into baskets and submerge them into the coating. To remove excess material from the fasteners, we remove the baskets from the coating and spin them in alternate directions at high rotating speeds. To remove further excess material, some of our processes also tilt the baskets to various angles while rotating. Following the dip-spin process, we cure the fasteners in ovens to dry and develop hardness in the coating material.
Depor evaluates each order and part configuration to determine the best process controls and set up. We establish coating thickness by controlling paint viscosity, rpms and spin times. Multiple layers of paint may be repeated to meet different requirements.
Our dip-spin process can apply organic and chrome-free finishes to automotive and non-automotive metal components. This highly efficient, cost-effective process provides high transfer efficiencies, high volume, short dwell times and oven-cured parts.
Tilt Tumble
In addition to standard upright dip-spin paint lines, Depor has invested in specialized WMV paint lines to handle difficult part configurations. These WMV paint lines, which operate at both of our locations, can tilt-tumble the paint basket while spinning it. The basket can be tilted up to 90 degrees and can tumble or spin simultaneously. This feature forces coating material into small recesses, such as Phillips drives, internal hex and torx, socket heads, bolts and screws. It also removes excess coating in the fastener or stamping, avoiding paint build up concerns that can cause assembly issues. Depor can develop and store sophisticated, custom process “recipes” and retrieve them for perfect process repeatability.
Barrel
Depor recently invested in a Reinhardt Barrel paint line that allows us to process more difficult geometric parts and enhance our overall metal finish quality. With this latest specialization device, we have had great success painting recess head bolts, stampings and other metal components that require special process parameters to avoid paint buildup and other concerns.
Rack Spin
Rack spin is new technology for North America, and Depor is proud to be one of the first companies to bring it to the United States. Partnering with German paint equipment manufacturers Forplan and WMV, Depor has engineered rack spin technology that brings low-cost dip-spin methods to delicate and large parts that cannot be processed on traditional dip-spin paint lines. Available at our Portland, Tennessee, facility, this technology allows us to offer a higher cosmetic finish for these parts.