Specify BS EN 12206 or QUALICOAT?
Chris Mansfield introduces the recently released update to BS EN 12206
During the recent QUALICOAT UK & Ireland conference held at the Building Centre in London, Chris Mansfield Commercial Director of Tomburn and licensed QUALICOAT Applicator, offered delegates an insight into the recently released BS EN 12206 for coated architectural aluminium having sat on the working group dealing with the revision.
In the UK we generally specify British Standards or a Euro Standard (EN) as a minimum requirement for many of our construction contracts often to the exclusion of lengthy written specifications. Even though we are out of the EU, the UK remain members of CEN/CENELEC and has an obligation to implement an EN Standard as an identical national Standard and withdraw any conflicting national Standards. These Standards are based on a ‘fit for purpose’ minimum requirement and form a benchmark to qualify products and services. Standards are ‘self policed’ in other words, claimed as meeting the Standard by a producer who supplies a product.
Originally released in 2004, BS EN 12206 'Paints and varnishes, coating of aluminium and aluminium alloys for architectural purposes, coatings prepared from thermosetting coating powder’, was subject to a review process in 2016 and was eventually released as a new updated Standard in May 2021. The major changes to the new 2021 Standard are as follows:
In the 2004 Standard cleaning prior to applying the conversion layer was stated as ‘Before the conversion stage, the substrate shall be thoroughly cleaned and/or pickled.’ The 2021 Standard now includes a requirement for a 1gm/m2 aluminium surface etch to ensure contaminants are removed. The 2004 Standard quoted ‘chrome-free’ as an alternate conversion layer, the new 2021 Standard now offers, chrome, chrome-free and pre-anodising as alternative pretreatments systems that can be used, all of which offer an equally desired outcome of surface pretreatment.
The revised Standard also expands on the Florida testing for ‘super durable’ and 'hyper durable' powder formulations where coatings are less flexible ensuring that these high-performance products now fall within the Standard. Other changes to the Standard include testing that is required on a finished coated sample, rather than just referring to a metal Standard. On packaging the Standard now requires that boxes containing coating powders are clearly labeled with full details of their contents to further help in reducing failures.
Current confusion regarding coating thicknesses has now been taken out of the Standard by removing the ‘average minimum thickness’ of 50 microns and just stating that the minimum thickness of coating should be 40 microns. Viewing distances for quality inspection has also been reduced to 1m from 3m in the previous Standard. This reduced distance allows for visual inspection to inclusions and scratches, however, for colour matching this distance can be increased as required. Furthermore on colour matching the new Standard also offers the option to use colour metric equipment to identify colour and variance.
Basically the new BS EN 12206-1:2021 now more closely aligned to the current QUALICOAT Specification which is constantly being updated with new methodology and developments, so which should you specify? There is no reason why you can’t specify both together if you wish to cover all bases, however should you do so, you could lose out on what benefit a QUALICOAT specification can bring to architectural finishes. There are three things that clearly differentiate a QUALICOAT Specification:
BS EN 12206 does offer a testing methodology, but does not state a frequency of production testing, QUALICOAT specifies both methodology and frequency of testing.
BS EN 12206 is self policing, relying on a suppliers word that they meet the Standard. QUALICOAT licensed applicators are subject to twice yearly unannounced inspections by an independent test house to ensure the QUALICOAT Specification is being followed. A coater failing an inspection can mean an Applicator member losing their status as a licence holder.
For those companies who work worldwide, BS EN 12206 covers just Europe, QUALICOAT is a worldwide, third party inspected Specification.
Simply put, A QUALICOAT Specification takes the ‘Due Diligence’ out of specifying a powder coater to coat to BS EN 12206.
The global QUALICOAT Standard is incrementally revised in real time with regular update sheets and is revised to include all updates each year end. The Specification, its appendices and any update sheets are freely available for download at www.qualicoat.net. For details on the availability of various colours and finishes contact any QUALICOAT UK & Ireland member for more information. For updated information about the use and specification of QUALICOAT in the UK and Ireland, please visit the UK & Ireland Association website at www.qualicoatuki.org.