ABOUT Finishing Services
Finishing Services encompass a range of primarily metal related services that cover various treatments, coatings, and processes that are applied to, or deposited on, substrates to provide corrosion protection, improve surface characteristics, remove contaminates or machining detritus, etc. The services apply to plastics and other materials in many cases also.
Finishing services can be loosely divided into three groups. Treatment services impart changes in the metal structure of surfaces through applications of heat and quenching or through mechanical working of surfaces by impingement. Coating services include coverings such as anodizing and plating where material is added to surfaces; it includes as well printing and marking. The third group generally uses abrasive techniques to remove minute layers of surfaces to make them smoother, flatter, etc.; this group could also include cleaning, which, while sometimes an abrasive process, does not have to be.
Some finishing services are particularly suited to being handled by specialized firms. Heat treating and plating, for instance, are almost invariably contracted out by most machine shops due to the batch nature of the processes and the need to maintain an array of furnaces, quenching baths, or vats of hazardous chemicals. Other services such as deburring can frequently be handled manually by in house labor but in large lots can benefit from automated processes that some service providers offer.
Anodizing is an electrochemical coating process that adds corrosion protection and/or colors to non-ferrous metals.
Heat Treating imparts changes to metals through the application of heating and cooling, which improves hardness, relieves stress, etc.
Deburring/Deflashing removes residual metal, plastic, etc. from parts following machining, casting, molding, and so on.
Coating provides surface protection from corrosion, improved hardness, etc. that can bond in a number of ways with the substrate, including metallurgically and mechanically.
Parts Cleaning removes contaminates from parts and ranges from degreasing to vacuum bakeout for parts intended for critical service.
Plating electochemically or chemically deposits thin layers of metal over base metals to improve corrosion resistance, conductivity, etc.
Polishing and Buffing are abrasive, electrochemical, and other material removal processes that smooth metal, plastic, etc. surfaces to improve cleanliness, promote adhesion, or enhance appearance.
Honing is an abrasive metal finishing process used to improve the surface characteristics of cylindrical parts and internal diameters.
Lapping is similar to honing but uses abrasive suspensions to increase parallelism and surface finishes on flat parts and mating parts.
Product Marking uses a variety of techniques such as etching to add identifying information, etc. to products and parts.
Blasting and Peening are mechanical process in which various grits are used to strip paint, etc. from parts or shot is used to mechanically deform surfaces to improve their fatigue life.