BL1909-custom-finishes

Specify custom colours for your enclosures at the click of a mouse – it’s now faster and easier than ever. Choose from 33 colours and finishes straight from stock.

It couldn’t be easier. Simply go to our custom colours page and click to add your preferred shade or finish to your specification list as if it were a product. Our sales team will then contact you to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Each listed finish or colour features two icons:

• List symbol – click to add the custom treatment or colour to your specification list
• Information (‘i’) symbol – click to find out more about the treatment process; choice of paint textures (fine, matt fine, smooth, matt smooth, semi-gloss, satin semi-gloss, leatherette).

Finishes And Treatments

Finishes available include Matt Anodised, corrosion-resistant Interlox 338, Pretreatment (organic conversion coating) and Zinc/Clear Passivate (to reduce the chemical reactivity of the surface).

We pretreat all aluminium and mild steel (CR4) components before painting them. This removes oils, greases and other agents used during manufacturing. It converts the metal surface to a non-metallic layer – improving the application, adhesion and surface finish of the paint.

We also pretreat the unfinished internal parts of our metal electronic enclosures. This gives the material a brown/gold surface colour (which is normal). Panels due to be anodised do not need pretreatment.

The pretreatment process involves four stages:

• Gardoclean® alkali cleaner and Gardobond® A 4913 lightweight amorphous iron phosphate pretreatment
• water rinse
• Gardolene® D6870 chromium-free post pretreatment rinse
• drying oven (150°C, 15 minutes).

Matt Anodising For Aluminium Enclosures

Matt anodising is impermeable. It provides an excellent metallic sheen and enhances the corrosion resistance of the protected aluminium. There is no risk of fading, chalking or thread-like filiform/filamentary/underfilm corrosion. Anodising preserves the original surface texture and offers excellent abrasion resistance.

The process is standard on all our front panels. You can also specify it as an option on rear panels and other custom components.

Anodising is an electrolytic process used to increase the thickness of the natural oxide layer on the surface of metal parts. The process is called anodising because the part to be treated forms the anode electrode of an electrolytic cell.

Why Interlox® 338 For Corrosion Resistance?

Interlox® 338 anti-corrosion treatment is an effective replacement for conventional hexavalent chromates. It produces a trivalent chromium conversion coating on both wrought and cast aluminium surfaces. This treatment is safer than traditional hexavalent chromates.

We recommend Interlox® 338 for internal components where the aesthetics are less important. We do not recommend it for desktop and portable enclosures.

Interlox® 338 is standard on the main case of our METTEC 19” rack cases.

Specify Zinc And Clear Passivate For CR4 Mild Steel Parts

Zinc plating with clear passivation significantly improves corrosion resistance. It also improves strength and abrasion resistance. The process involves two main steps:

• electroplating the surface with zinc
• adding colour by treating the plated metal with a chemical passivate.

Clear passivate leaves the metal with the silver colour of zinc. This will include a slight iridescence (from blue to yellow to pink).

Stocked Paint Colours

Our paints are polyester or epoxy polyester. Both offer excellent finishes. Polyester is a good quality paint in its own right but epoxy polyester is better still. Epoxy polyester performs better in demanding environments but it can be less resistant to UV rays.

Our permanent stock of 29 custom colours is based on the shades that are in greatest demand. Stocked colours include red, yellow, orange, green, silver, 10 shades of blue, two shades of black, three shades of white and six shades of grey.

In-house facilities include a powder paint line and a wet spray booth. There is no minimum order quantity or extra cost for painting standard parts in a stocked colour. Please contact us if you need other colours – we are happy to order them for you but there may be a minimum order quantity and/or extra cost associated with specifying non-stocked paint.

Other Customisation Services

METCASE offers a full range of customisation services including custom sizes, front panels, CNC machining, fixings/inserts and digital printing. We also offer a fixed fee prototyping service and can also design fully bespoke enclosures on request.