Quality surface coatings from Poeton (UK)
Founded in 1898, Poeton are one of the UK’s leading surface engineering specialists, providing a wide choice of surface coatings under the Apticote trademark, serving customers worldwide in industries as diverse as aerospace, medical, food, packaging, pumps and electronics. Apticote is now specified as the coating of choice on many customers’ engineering drawings.
Poeton offers a wide range of coatings and test services including anodising (Sulphuric, Hard, Hard + PTFE, Chromic and Tartaric/Sulphuric – ‘TSA’), conversion (Alodine and Surtec), hard chrome (precision and over-plate), crack free chrome, cadmium (Dull and LHE) nickel/silicon carbide composite, electroless nickel (Medium and High Phosphorous – Nickel/PTFE composites) silver, tin, copper and phosphate. Poeton also offer advanced technology plasma spraying, priming and painting, polymer coatings (non-stick, low friction) and chromate free anodising of magnesium alloys.
Test services are very important for a high quality supplier of coatings. Poeton can offer non-destructive testing (LPI, MPI, Nital Etch, hardness and conductivity), salt fog corrosion testing, cyclic corrosion testing, taber abrasion testing, pin on disc wear testing, reciprocating wear testing, metallographic analysis and atomic absorption testing.
The Poeton group provides total coating support to many industries world-wide including aerospace, food, pharmaceutical manufacture / packaging and the oil and gas sector. For aerospace and defence customers, Poeton hold Nadcap & AS 9100, Rev C approvals covering NDT, chemical processing and plasma spraying, as well as OEM approvals from most of the world’s leading aerospace equipment suppliers. Both UK sites work 24 hour shift patterns which provide their strategic and key accounts with exceptional lead times and customer service support.
The Apticote range of metal/polymer composite coatings offer unrivalled low friction, wear resistance, non-stick and corrosion protection and comply with CFR21 subsection 175.300 of section 175 allowing them to be used in food contact applications. Poeton’s coatings protect and enhance the performance of augers for bulk mixing, heat sealing bars for packaging sealing and food sorting equipment and a wide range of other components used in the production and packaging of food, drugs and beverages.
A new coating range for the packaging industry is Apticote 810. Many package sealing components need the best long life, non-stick coatings. Trevor Amos, Director of Sales at Poeton Industries, considers the advantage of their new Apticote 810 product range.
The essence of a non-stick coating is that they stop materials, from adhering to it each other. But that presents a problem – how to get the coating to key on to the machined component, be it a guide, mould, roller, blade or plate. The best non-stick coatings are relatively soft, and they are easily damaged or peeled off the substrate – long before their potential life against a sticky product has been realised. Poeton have solved this problem with a new coating range called Apticote 810, which combines Apticote 200 (non-stick polymers) with Apticote 800 (thermal spraying metals). By blending the two, with a graded structure from the substrate through to the working surface, they achieve a robust substrate bond, a tough, high load carrying capacity coating and the optimum long life non-stick.
The system gives our products a huge advantage, says Trevor Amos. We can tailor the polymer composition to the application, whilst blending it into a ceramic matrix. Some products are very sticky, but soft. Others need a degree of non-stick, but are abrasive, particularly when flowing into moulds. Each demands a different -Apticote 810 blend. For example, by designing the right coatings for medical packaging machines, we have increased the life of sealing bars by tenfold and the life of medical rollers by four fold. It saves our customers money and down-time.
Poeton are committed to solving customers’ problems, through consultation and R&D working to develop new coatings, advising on materials and design, and ensuring the optimum and most cost-effective surface engineering solution from design to production.
Winning the prestigious awards confirms Poeton’s dynamic approach to staying at the forefront of new coating technologies, demonstrating to the customers that they have the best Quality System Approvals available. Poeton are, and will remain, committed to offering the best coating processes and quality products to the global customer base.
Test of coating and finishing
Especially aviation needs surface technology in its best
Parts particularly suitable for coating with Apticote 810
Awards for marketing and quality
Poeton, surface engineering specialist, has won two prestigious awards at the Surface Engineering Association (SEA) annual gala dinner, which was held at the House of Commons on the 19th October 2012. They also secured the runner-up award in the Outstanding Company category.
The winning awards were for Marketing and Quality. The Marketing award recognised the huge success of the company in promoting their Apticote 300TSA (Tartaric Sulphuric Anodising) process, used to protect vital aluminium components on the new Airbus A350 XWB aircraft. The second award was for Quality, and recognised the Quality Counts philosophy in securing and maintaining NADCAP and AS 9100, Rev C Approvals, vital accreditations that allow Poeton to compete for major Aerospace and Defence treatment programs. This award also recognised Poeton for being one of the first treatment companies to introduce Six Sigma, a strategy that improves the quality of critical process outputs. This technique helps identify and remove the causes of defects (errors), and minimises variability in coating processes. It uses a set of quality management tools, including statistical methods, and creates an infrastructure of employees trained in ‘Continuous Improvement’ techniques gaining Green Belt and Black Belt status.
One of the plants of Poeton
Proud Winners: Rowenna Poeton (Director), Steve Elliot-Mead (Finance Manager/Company Secretary), Lyndon Follows (Group Managing Director), Anthony Poeton (Chairman) (from left)
