Door Industry Journal - Spring 2014

Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk industry news 9 THE door industry journal spring 2014 ALUTECH UTILISE ELECTRONIC CROCKMETER TESTING TO ENSURE QUALITY OF THEIR FINISHES The Alutech Group and BASF Coatings GmBH are the first to apply the crockmeter test in evaluation of roller garage door lacquer coating quality. Since the launch of their coil coating and cutting production complex for aluminium and steel coil, the Alutech Group has been closely co-operating with internationally renowned company BASF GmBH. Alutech see this partnering as good practice for both supplier and manufacturer when introducing new technologies, because it enables testing of new materials during the implementation stage of joint projects. For instance, for the first time BASF Coatings tested the liquid coating on aluminium coil used for Alutech’s woodgrain colours (golden oak, rosewood, irish oak, nut) during the coil coating process. This project was no exception, because for more than a year the two companies have worked on enhancing the technology of lacquer coating quality assessment to improve the aesthetic qualities of the finished products and to prolong their service life. Mr. Stanislav Kuzmitsky, Deputy Director of Marketing at Alutech Incorporated LLC, said: “In the course of the project, questions were raised about the quality control methods employed. Up to this point roller garage doors from the production line were used in surface and abrasion resistance tests, where a certain number of up and down cycles were carried out on installed roller garage doors. “In this test, chips, scratches, lacquer coating profile abrasion are controlled and the number of cycles is registered. Thus, by using working roller garage doors, the average product life of its lacquer coating can be estimated. However, this method is complicated and requires the constant presence of specialists from the quality control department. “Taking into account the wide range of laths and the Alutech colour range, the method didn’t allow us to test quickly and accurately every Alutech product at all stages of improving the coil coating technology. As a result, BASF Coatings proposed a new method to evaluate the lacquer coating quality using a crockmeter”. Technical note from BASF: “This method has previously been used in the textile industry as well as in evaluation of car coating abrasion”. “We therefore decided to use it for testing the Alutech coloured coil” concluded Mr Kuzmitsky. An Electronic Crockmeter is a special device, on which you install some samples of coloured coil/lath, starting the cycle of back-and-forth motions simulating opening/closing of the roller garage door curtain. The less abrasions that form on the front face, the longer the beautiful external finish of the roller garage door will be preserved when subjected to daily operation. Introducing this new technology in addition to constant quality control, has allowed Alutech to improve the abrasion resistance of the coating by more than a factor of two and a half! In practice, it means that roller garage doors made of Alutech components will have a perfect external image twice as long as previously! Guido Schönebeck, account manager for BASF, emphasizes the point by saying: “We’re happy to co-operate with the Alutech Group. It’s a pleasure to know that the company is ready to improve its product range and bring innovations. We’re satisfied with the results of our projects with them and we’re sure it isn’t the last joint project we will be working on”. PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS WITH OUR HELP Low Cost and Free Publicity - You can benefit from some help in promoting your business, its products and services on the Door Industry Journal Blog at an incredibly low price (typically £30) towards our page creation and layout costs. But if you advertise with us, you will receive the publicity absolutely free of charge (see below). Extra benefits for our advertisers - If you take display advertising or product and literature features in our printed and online publications, you will also qualify for regular free postings on the Door Industry Journal Blog while you continue to advertise with us. Email your articles to: mail@doorindustryjournal.co.uk Visit our Blog to see the kind of publicity we provide: www.doorindustryjournal.blogspot.com BLOGGING