Structural steel is used in most maritime structures because it is strong, readily available, and not excessive costly. Unfortunately, marine environments present severe and costly corrosion problems for steel structures. Protective coatings constitute the most cost-effective method of protecting marine structures from corrosion. They do this by providing a barrier between the steel and the aggressive marine environment.

What affects the atmospheric corrosion rate of steel:

• Moisture (time of wetness)
• Oxygen, temperature
• Air pollution, industrial atmosphere (SO2, NOx, sooth)
• Chlorides, marine atmosphere
• Dirt, hygroscopic salts
• Galvanic impact

How to limit corrosion in marine environment?

• Correct material selection
• Organic coatings – paint
• Inorganic coatings – metallising/galvanizing
• Cathodic protection
• Good surface preparation
• Regards to the corrosivity category
• Other measures

To cope with these extreme conditions, we have successfully formulated an application process for Galvacoat® which will stand up to the most demanding of weather or other challenges.

This has included anything from metal gates looking out over the Atlantic Ocean to a coating project within a Power Plant. The specialist formulations which we provide for these situations are highly focused, and work on addressing the specific challenges at the featured locations.

Possible paint solution for aggressive environments

For more aggressive environments (C4 or C5 DS/EN ISO 12944-2 corrosivity categories) or where there may be high humidity and/or high corrosivity such as swimming pools, marine environments, waste treatment and water treatment plants, pharmaceutical or brewing plants and distilleries, it is possible to specify Galvacoat Extreme. This will provide the extra protection required to ensure a life to first maintenance in line with your project requirements.

By upgrading to Galvacoat® Extreme, you can enjoy all the great benefits of Galvacoat® – even in some of the most inhospitable locations in Ireland and abroad, where they must withstand the uniquely challenging tests of these locations.

Why paint?

• Decoration
• Identification/Image
• Warning/Safety
• Camouflage
• Specific properties: Cleaning, anti-slippage
• Protect

Galvacoat® Extreme

In terms of the payback of the Galvacoat® galvanizing paint solutions, the facts and figures very definitely speak for themselves. By way of example, it is fair to say that standard paint finishes in an outdoor maritime environment tend to have a shelf-life of around twelve to twenty-four months.

Galvacoat® galvanizing paint solutions actually retains its original colour to within 5% over twenty years, so you can easily see where the lifetime cost savings are to be found.

The other big advantage of going the Galvacoat® route in these most inhospitable of locations is that you don’t just enjoy a functional benefit – you also get to enjoy the aesthetic benefits that come from our ability to match any RAL or British Standard colour.

In short, durable doesn’t have to mean dull or dour, and this is particularly important when you’re trying to match brand colours, for example, or adhere to a colour specified by the project architects.

If you find yourself with a painting project in a challenging environment, why not talk to us before tackling it and we’ll be pleased to recommend the optimal solution for the job in hand. The savings you make in the long-term can be significant – including the time and effort saved in re-coating within a fraction of the time required by Galvacoat®.

Find best suitable solution 

In order to do this please contact our technical sales team giving details of the material to be painted and the environmental conditions to which it will be exposed. They will then be able to recommend a suitable solution to the problem and allow you achieve your desired outcome.

The post How to protect steel in marine environment with galvanizing paint solutions? appeared first on Galvacoat.

Painting Galvanizing

Newer and better technology is also driving the paint industry, and nowhere is this more evident than in the formulation of Galvacoat® – a specialist product that’s designed to provide exceptional adhesion to non-ferrous metals for painting galvanising?

To see how it’s improving efficiencies and saving effort, we can look at the traditional methods of painting galvanised surfaces.By and large, the options were as follows:

• Etch primer, which scores the surface of the galvanizing to create and area of grip for the paint. Difficult to get complete coverage and adds additional financial and labour costs before the actual top coat can be applied.
• T-Wash, a modified zinc phosphate solution which discolours the galvanizing and when dry allows for painting. This option is labour intensive and expensive
• Sweep blasting is a very light blasting process that serves to roughen up the surface of the galvanising to create adhesion for the paint.
• Weathering, which is only effective after 6 months. The intention being that the resulting coarseness would provide a better surface for adhesion. Unfortunately, if you come back to a project after six months, you might have difficulties accessing it, assuming construction had progressed, or might need to hire equipment to get at the area involved.

The problem with these methods is that, while they looked to address the issues of grip, they neglected to address the issue of salt build-up. When galvanised zinc immediately looks to revert to its natural form, this leads to the creation of salts which in turn causes any paint to lose adhesion, leaving you the prospect of expensive remedial action.

Now counterpoint this with today’s advanced Galvacoat® technology. Not only does it solve the problem of adhesion, but it also addresses the salt issue. Over its lifetime cost, it saves hugely on any of the methods mentioned earlier, as it involves just a single application. And in terms of its aesthetic effectiveness, it preserves 95% of the selected colour for up to two decades. That’s a very long time not to have to worry about repainting!

Another huge benefit, of course, is that in our less than predictable Irish weather, only having to apply it once means that Galvacoat® can have you in and out before the weather gets a chance to change its mind.

Add in the fact that Galvacoat® has very strong U.V resistance and anti-graffiti properties, along with being available in the full RAL colour spectrum, and you can see why we claim that painting galvanising has never been so easy.

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Thankfully, Galvacoat® is a galvanised steel paint that has been specifically formulated to provide complete adhesion to non-ferrous metals, offering a highly effective and long-lasting galvanising paint solution that saves a huge amount of time and effort in painting galvanised surfaces.

In the past, painters were faced with one of two choices when it came to covering galvanised surfaces:

• They could choose to use an etch primer on freshly galvanised steel, which created a ‘roughness’ for the subsequent paint coat to stick to.
• Alternatively, they could simply allow the structure to weather for six months or so, which theoretically delivered the same roughening process.

The disadvantages to the painter in either case were fairly obvious:

• Firstly, there was the cost of buying etch primer, but more importantly, there was double the labour involved, as he had to first apply the etch primer, and then paint over it with the selected paint. This was tedious, time-consuming and literally ate into time.
• Secondly, if a surface was left to weather for six months, there could be difficulty accessing it after the time period has elapsed. What was an open, easily accessed surface on Day 1 could now be a block of flats or a factory building. Or perhaps there would be the additional cost of hiring a Cherry Picker to access it.

At the root of the problem, for traditional paints, is the issue of salt. Once the galvanising process has been completed, there is a chemical reaction which leads to the formulation of salt. And painting over salt by traditional methods will inevitably end in failure – and in the paint simply falling off the sheet over time.

This is why the traditional weathering process is doomed to fail, as the build-up of salt over a six-month period can be very significant on the galvanised surface.

The advent of Galvacoat® galvanised steel paint, however, means that today’s painter can apply a single coat to a galvanised surface – and simply walk away from it, confident that the job will last for many years to come.

It will actually retain its original colour to within a 5% variance for a period of up to 20 years. And for the property owner, this can lead to a huge saving over the lifetime cost of the painting job.

Another benefit of Galvacoat® galvanised steel paint is that it can be easily repainted over itself maintaining the adhesion of the original coat while reducing costs associated with traditional remedial work. This is particularly beneficial when the surface in question is difficult to access or open to the elements – perhaps in a coastal environment, for example.

The post With Galvacoat®, Painters and Galvanisers Can Now Be One and The Same appeared first on Galvacoat.

It is the most effective galvanized steel paint solution for treating hot dip galvanized steel, with a host of key advantages over alternatives such as powder coating.

• Save On Lifetime Cost. Galvacoat® comes with long-life properties built-in, as it is typically used on structures that may be hard to access, large in surface area, and open to all weather conditions. This means that, if you do the math, the lifetime cost of Galvacoat is significantly more affordable than alternative finishes, which need to be re-applied far more frequently.

• Gain On Longevity. The long-life properties of Galvacoat® mean that it will retain its original colour to within 5% over a period of 20 years. This means that you can simply paint your galvanized structure – and then forget it for two whole decades.

• It’s Easy to Apply. A huge plus factor of Galvacoat® galvanized steel paint is that it requires just a single application, minimizing the quantity of paint you use – and the manpower to apply it. That single application will keep your surface looking its brilliant best whether you choose to apply it by brush or by a spray system.

• Easy Onsite Touch-up. Because Galvacoat® can be applied onsite – as opposed to powder coating, for example – it means that you can quickly and easily touch-up small areas that may have lost their lustre, as opposed to having to paint the entire surface. This is another cost-saving element of Galvacoat® that rival finishes simply can’t offer.

• It’s Highly Versatile. Galvacoat® has been designed to be applied directly to freshly galvanized steel. Importantly, however, it can also be used as a fresh coat to galvanized steel that’s been coated with conventional paints. This extra layer of versatility makes it highly popular with specifiers and end users alike.

• A Multitude of Applications. You can successfully use Galvacoat® on applications as diverse as balconies and gates, power and sub-station equipment, railings, street furniture, structural steel and water treatment plants. It’s hard to imagine an application that’s not suitable for coating by Galvacoat®.

• Choose From a Range of Custom Applications. There are numerous applications out there that pose a special challenge to paint finishes, including marine environments, public areas where a urea-resistant finish may be required, high-corrosion environments and composting facilities. Depending on your particular needs, our Galvacoat® paint experts will develop a customised treatment that can be successfully used in any or all of these situations.

• We’re Always Here to Help. If you need help or guidance on any non-standard applications, our friendly, professional experts are always on hand to share their knowledge and experience with you whether you’re an architect, an engineer, a utility company, or a galvanizer.

The post 8 key Advantages of Galvacoat Over Other Finishes for Galvanized Surfaces appeared first on Galvacoat.

Hot dip galvanizing is the most successful method of providing corrosion protection for steelwork, but up until recently the palate of colours available of this process has been limited. With Galvacoat you can now match your desired colour in accordance with the RAL System.

RAL is a colour matching standard used for defining exact colours for paint and coatings, and is the most popular Central European Color Standard used today. The system is arranged into yellow, orange, red, violet, blue, green, grey, brown and white/black groupings with up to 40 variant shade within each one. The colours are typically used in architecture, construction, and industry and road safety where specific standards would be required.

What this means is that specifiers and end users alike can now match the colour of various surfaces with their own brand colours, or with a specific creative design for the surface.

And there’s no doubt about it, we’re becoming ‘braver’ in our use of colours in recent years. We’ve provided every colour combination from pink – for a hair salon – to baby blue for a wonderful steel installation. And both colours will stand up to the elements just as well as darker more traditional alternatives. The colour finish is pretty much as limitless as your imagination, and can totally transform the end result in terms of its aesthetic appeal.

There can also be a safety consideration involved in the choice of colour. Numerous county councils and local authorities have opted for luminous yellow, for example.

Another big plus is that, as well as being available in any colour you choose, Galvacoat Extreme gives you the added benefit of being able to resist local environmental or meteorological conditions.

For a beautiful block of apartments in Westport that look straight out to sea – with a high sodium environment – we provided a hot dip galvanizing solution that not just looks amazing, but that will also resist fading and deterioration for many, many years to come.

Nowadays, Galvacoat is used across a wide range of applications including gates, railings and balconies – as well as on structural steelwork and street furniture. This makes it more relevant than ever that the finish can be in any colour you can imagine, letting you match the colour with the use or location of the finished surface.

For further information on Galvacoat hot dip galvanizing– and how you can choose from a whole rainbow of colours –   why not contact our friendly, expert advisors today!

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Hot Dip Galvanizing has long been recognised as the most successful method of providing corrosion protection for steelwork. For some however, the perceived difficulty in applying a subsequent paint coating on top of it has limited its use – and caused specifiers to seek other forms of corrosion protection.

The reason that many paints tend not to adhere well to freshly galvanized steel goes back to the original use they were intended for. These paints were typically designed for application directly to steel, which is a ‘ferrous metal’. Galvanizing ,on the other hand, is zinc based and as zinc is a ‘non-ferrous metal’ a different solution is required.

Galvacoat was originally formulated for direct application to zinc to allow hot dip galvanized transformer tanks be painted over twenty years ago. Galvacoat is still widely used for this purpose and is also approved for use on Electricity pylons.

Nowadays Galvacoat is used across a wide range of applications including gates, railings and balconies as well as on structural steelwork and street furniture.

Elements covered by our CPD for Architects and Engineers Programme

Our CPD presetnations typically take place in the offices of the architects, engineers or utility companies involved, and cover the following elements:

• Understanding Hot Dip Galvanizing
• Surface preparation of galvanized steel for painting
• Achieving adequate corrosion protection
• Coating thickness in relation to life expectancy
• Coating inspection and certification
• The relevant standards for Hot Dip Galvanizing and paint application
• Costs and economics
• Sustainability
• Unique characteristics of Galvacoat paint
• Typical uses for Galvacoat paint including case studies.

We fully understand that our audience is extremely busy, so we have concentrated this content into presentations of just 40 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. To ensure minimum downtime, they often take place during lunch. For presentations to overseas companies, we typically make the presentation in the form of a conference call.

We hope to add a stronger digital dimension to our presentations in the near future, so look out for an online option of our various CPD elements over the coming months.

The post Galvacoat Offer CPD Opportunities to Architects and Engineers appeared first on Galvacoat.

Traditionally, there were two types of paint for galvanizing, i.e. paints used on galvanized steel – these were wet paint and powder coating. While each of them had their undoubted strengths, they also had their weaknesses.

In the case of wet painting, for example, wet paint will eventually fall off with the passing of time. To touch it up involves taking all of the old paint off, cleaning it down and repainting from scratch. This is a hugely time-consuming and onerous job, with a financial cost to match.

With powder coating, on the other hand, there are no solvents involved so it was widely regarded as being the best way to go. The problem, of course, is that powder was never designed for galvanized steel. This means that if it gets damaged, trying to touch it up looks dreadful from an aesthetic point of view.

And similar to wet paint, you need to take it all off and start again – not to mention the fact that it requires a machine to touch up all the damaged areas.

So is there a better alternative when it comes to touching up?

Thankfully, there is. Galvacoat® is a tough, single application polyurethane topcoat that’s specifically formulated to adhere to non-ferrous metals such as zinc. It is a highly cost-effective and efficient paint system that delivers perfect adhesion to hot dip galvanized steel.

The big benefit of Galvacoat® is that it can be touched up on site without having to take the old material off, making it quicker, cheaper and much more efficient.

Achieving great adhesion to hot dip galvanized steel

It can be very hard to get paint to stick to galvanized metal – and with good reason. When zinc comes out of the ground, it reacts to the atmosphere by trying to cover itself in salt for protection. If you paint the top of zinc, the same thing happens and salt forms under the paint.

The flexibility to cope with any environment

A major benefit of Galvacoat® is that it can be altered to suit the specific needs on site. For example, in a coastal environment, high acidity environment powder coating mightn’t be able to meet the requirements of the location – but Galvacoat® can be chemically altered to meet the demands of any physical environment.

Another strength of Galvacoat®, in terms of flexibility, is that you can paint it on site – unlike powdered systems. This is particularly important when you are looking to deliver a great aesthetic result, e.g. in a company’s public headquarters or a public-facing building.

Cleaner application every time

Galvacoat® application is tightly controlled, so it goes where you want it to go. This really comes into its own in situations where there may be mechanical damage to painted steel. As Galvacoat® is a wet paint system, it can be applied by roller or brush, giving greater accuracy and less mess than a spray system.

The bottom line is that when it comes to touching up galvanized steelwork, there’s only one answer – Galvacoat®.

For more information or to find a Galvacoat® stockist near you, contact us today.

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And because the farming community are so positively disposed to the benefits of galvanizing, Galco have looked to talk directly to this audience by attending the National Ploughing Championships, promoting the benefits of Galvacoat paint when used on Hot Dip Galvanizing.

But what about the non-farming community? This was the question we asked ourselves three years ago, in response to the fact that a more urban population – particularly on the East Coast – know very little about the topic of galvanizing – or how to keep galvanized surfaces in tip-top condition.

To address this issues, we decided to bring our expertise to the Ideal Home Exhibition Dublin 2015, and this has proved to be a very effective opportunity for us in terms of sharing information and educating domestic end users. In other words – the ordinary householder.

Typically, the non-farming community will have steel products in their home or gardens, anything from railings to front gates. And frequently, they will have spent quite a lot of money on them – yet they’re just not educated in how to keep them in pristine condition, thanks to Galvacoat.

One of the most powerful ways in which we’ve showcased the benefits of Galvacoat was by displaying a large house gate on two pillars – the typical sort of gate that you might find in any family home. One half of the gate is Hot Dip Galvanized, while the other half has been painted in Galvacoat. This is a fantastic visual representation of how really lasting results can be achieved.

We’ve had a huge level of questioning from householders who had bought a mild steel or powder coated gate in recent years, and had then witnessed just how poorly they fared in our typical Irish weather conditions. Inevitably, within just a year or two, they will have started to rust. Not alone is this an indication that they’re not going to last as long as expected, but it’s also a huge blemish on the front of an otherwise beautifully presented home.

And in the case of powder coated gates, the effects will be that the coating starts to peel off after only a couple of years. Again, this ruins the front aspect of any well maintained home.

We explain that if their gates or railings had been galvanized, they could last for up to 50 years before needing their first maintenance. And if Galvacoat was then applied, this could add a further decade to the life of the metal. In addition, the colour of Galvacoat is very slow to fade, so the original look will last for years and years.

Galvacoat is the perfect solution for householders who want results that not only look great, but that also adds value to the property and is genuinely low-maintenance.

To find out more about Galvacoat for households talk to us today.

The post Showcasing an Ideal Paint Solution at the Ideal Home Exhibition appeared first on Galvacoat.

The product came about just over 15 years ago when Galco Steel, developers of Galvacoat®, were approached by ABB who had a very specific requirement in mind.
They needed a paint that would give top-class adherence to their transformer tanks. Galvacoat® was developed as a specific response for this project, but since then, it has become the paint treatment of choice for a wide range environments where galvanized steelwork needs to be painted – from structural projects through to the transport industry

In the U.K., Galvacoat® is distributed by the Wedge Group, who have over 40 years’ experience in the area of galvanized steel.
The key benefits of Galvacoat® include:
• Can be applied directly to freshly galvanized steel.
• Can be easily applied on-site or in-house.
• High volume of solids – 60%.
• Quick and easy to apply.
• Specifically designed for Hot Dip Galvanized Steel.
• Suitable for all spray systems and brush applications.
• Can be used on balconies, gates, power and substation equipment, railings, street furniture, structural steel, water treatment plants, and window boxes.

The product has proven itself in the Irish market at a wide range of nationally known projects where there was a need for specialist paint for galvanizing – from train stations to hotels and pretty much everything in between.

Since summer 2014, Galvacoat® has been available in the U.K. through the Wedge Group, and it has already made its mark on a number of large projects such as Tesco Fuel Stations and commercial warehouses for John Reid & Sons.
Mark Endsleigh of the Wedge Group reports that Galvacoat® is receiving a very positive reaction in the UK market, and a number of large construction companies who have trialled the product already are keen to place further large orders. With Galvacoat’s® easy application and professional finish, Endsleigh is confident that the product will push further into the UK market and become an extremely successful Wedge Group galvanizing product

For more information or to find a Galvacoat® stockist in the U.K., contact us today on 01376 501501.

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