May, 2026

Last September, a batch of powder coated architectural light housings landed back at our dock with a note: “Surface defects – unacceptable.” When we unwrapped the first few parts, my heart sank. The smooth satin black finish I had signed off on was peppered with tiny craters and pinholes, some so deep you could see the raw casting underneath. The entire lot was headed straight for the stripping tank. The culprit wasn’t a dirty booth or a bad batch ofRead More …

If you’ve worked around a powder coating line for more than a week, you’ve seen it: a small, circular depression in an otherwise perfect finish. It looks like someone pressed a tiny ball bearing into the hot film right before it cured. Maybe you’ve called it a crater, a dimple, or a fisheye. Whatever the name, it’s annoying, and it’s almost always a contamination problem that plays hide-and-seek with your line. I remember one winter we chased a fisheye issueRead More …