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This page answers questions you may have or contains additional information you might be interested in. Just click a link for answers to some common questions.
Process Information
Account Information
Other Information
To produce optimum results requires paying close attention to detail and oftentimes extra work. Over the years, we've developed a number of special processes to enhance the value of our services. Some of these special processes include:
- Polishing - many types of tools are polished with diamond compound to enhance their performance and produce optimum coating adhesion.
- Tumbling
- Nickel plating (performed by outside vendors)
- Stripping - We strip TiN, TiCN, TiAlN and Alpha™ coatings in-house, while CrN is removed by an outside vendor. Approximate price for our in-house stripping is about 40% of the applicable coating charge. Please call for a CrN stripping charge estimate.
- Texturing - some parts work best with a specific surface finish. Using sand and bead blasting techniques, we are capable of optimizing surface finishes for a particular application.
- Tool Prep - This is a link to a PDF about preparing tools for PVD coating.
Masking a part requires covering that area of the part with metal and / or carbon. This can be very labor intensive and can result in up to a doubling of the coating cost. On the other hand, we have to hold a part somewhere and where the part is held, that area is not coated. So it may be possible to design fixtures to cost-effectively mask the desired areas of a part.
Typical coating temperatures are about 800°F for all of our coatings. Coating temperature may have an effect on the hardness of your parts and could cause parts to shrink or grow. This page provides our recommendations for tempering tool steels for the PVD coating process.
We are capable of coating at lower temperatures (down to 600°F) if it is required by the application. Coating at lower temperatures may have an adverse effect on quality, however.
We suggest that our customers consult their heat treaters to determine what, if any, effect our process temperature will have on the tool steel being used.
It is possible to coat aluminum substrates with some process modifications. For it to be economically feasible requires that there be a potential for a significant number of parts. If you have an application you are considering, please send an email or give us a call to discuss the feasibility of your project.
Typical coating lead-times are a week, or less, but could be two weeks for large orders and / or orders that require a lot of prep work. In most cases, we batch your parts with others that we are coating. So if you let us know that "hot" jobs are coming, we may be able to schedule our work to shorten your lead-time.
We coat tools from all over the country, including California, New York, Florida and everywhere in-between. For typical UPS transit times between your location and our location, click here.
To get parts coated, just send in a purchase order with all your company information on it (company name, address, phone numbers, contact information, etc.). We will coat your parts and send them back (typically via UPS).
Please provide a UPS account number if you would like the shipping charges billed to that account. Also, please provide an accounts payable email address so we can send a PDF invoice to the appropriate email address.
Surface Solutions Inc.
7895 Ranchers Road
Fridley, MN 55432
PVD Hard Coatings to Improve Your Bottom Line!
Be More Productive, Give Us a Call! (888-245-2804)
Phone: 763-785-9436
Fax: 763-785-9447
Email: info@tincoat.net
© 2011 Surface Solutions Inc.
Parts masked, ready for coating.
Aluminum part - AlTiN coated.
Cast iron engine plate after polishing.
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