A 'One Stop Shop' for your Aerospace and Defence Coatings

The Poeton One-Stop Shop offers every conceivable surface treatment and coating for the aerospace and defence industries, and all under one roof.

Our customers can reduce costs in transport, progress administration, inspection time and quality control documentation by bringing all these certified coating services under a single management, enabling Aerospace and Defence customers to place just one order for multiple surface treatments on the same component batch.

Our Customer Benefits

Our One Stop Coatings and Surface Treatments Service is designed for the supply chain that manufactures and provides components to the prime contractors for the aerospace and defence industries. These companies are continually under pressure to supply fully finished components that may require a complex treatment sequence such as:

Such a sequence of operations can be obtained at one site, with one purchase order, with all the necessary defence or aerospace accreditations and no intermediate delays. Our customers save both time and money, receive a fast-track service and minimise their transport and packaging costs.

Our Range of OSS Coatings and Services

Our coating and surface treatment range is very extensive. For an overview of our capabilities and premier products, you can follow the links below.

Hard Chrome Plating

Poeton offer heavy deposits of hard chrome for grinding, as well as precision chrome plating (Apticote 100), using our highly skilled fixturing and jigging capability. With careful and skilful processing, we can greatly reduce, or even eliminate, your chrome plating grinding costs and save your real money!

We can coat items up to 3m long and 5 tonnes in weight. There is no Aerospace or Defence chrome plating task too big for us!

Cadmium Plating

The Poeton Cadmium Plating (Apticote 900) system is zero effluent, and we offer all the variations required for high strength, embrittlement-sensitive aerospace parts.

Cadmium Options	900N	Normal (bright)
	900L	Low Embrittlement (dull)

Our Cd plating quality is second to none, and we can handle any of the largest and heaviest Aerospace and Defence components, even up to 3 m long.

Cadmium plate can also be chromate passivated.

Copper and Nickel Plating

Poeton operate both cyanide and acid copper plating baths to meet all your Aerospace and Defence copper plating needs. For instance, cyanide copper plating is used for masking (eg, when nitriding steel parts), for anti-galling, or as an undercoat for other engineering coatings on parts like zinc die-castings. Acid copper plating is used for building heavy deposits, for instance to reclaim worn parts.

Poeton also offer Watts Nickel and Sulphamate Nickel (Apticote 700) for heavy deposit reclamation, as a combination with hard chrome, or for controlled deposits on smaller, volume parts. We can handle most Aerospace and Defence parts, with our automating line or our individual plating tanks. Please consult us about your parts and we will always meet your needs.

Anodising

Poeton offer Chromic Acid Anodising, Sulphuric Acid Anodising and Hard Anodising for all Aerospace and Defence parts. Chromic acid anodising is typically 1 to 2µ thick, often used as a pre-treatment prior to painting, as well as for some corrosion protection. Sulphuric acid anodising produces layers 10 to 15µ for corrosion protection and dying in a wide range of colours. Hard anodising provides wear resistance, with layers 40 to 70µ thick.

Our anodising capacity is huge, with automated lines capable of processing volume parts quickly and efficiently, as well as long, deep tanks for your biggest (even 5 meters!) Aerospace and Defence parts. Follow these links for more details. Apticote 300, Apticote 350.

Electroless Nickel

Poeton operate a major electroless nickel-plating facility (Apticote 400) for Aerospace and Defence, including medium and high phosphorous deposits, a nickel/PTFE (Apticote 450) system for low friction coatings and a range of Poeton 'Apticote' electroless nickel/polymer composites (Apticote 460).

Parts can be heat-treated up to 400Deg C to increase the coating hardness to near 1,000Hv. Electroless nickel, which is used primarily for corrosion protection, has the merits of precision, producing predictable and even coating distributions.

Our automated plating lines can accommodate the largest Aerospace and Defence components.

Consults us on your needs, and we will meet them!

Chromating

Poeton operate Alochrom 1000 and 1200 chromating systems for treatment of aluminium parts as well as dedicated facilities for chromating of magnesium parts (for instance to DTD 911C).

Zinc Plating

The cyanide zinc plating facility can handle parts up to 2m long, as well as volume small parts by barrel plating. Typical thickness is in the range 5 to 20µ, providing galvanic corrosion protection for a range of Aerospace and Defence components. Poeton can work to a range of specifications, and provide clear, black, olive drab and iridescent passivation.

Phosphating and Painting

Poeton have a large paint spray booth and associated curing oven, and can meet all the key demands in Aerospace and Defence specifications. Acrylic, epoxy, etch primers, Xylan and Molykote systems are employed, with phosphate pre-treatments as required. Sizes up to 3m can be accommodated

Tin Plating

Tin and Tin/Nickel coatings are offered for specialist aerospace and defence requirements. Parts up to 2.5m can be handled, using an acid stanate bath. Tin is used for electrical contact, food products and brazing, tin/nickel for EMF shielding and corrosion protection.

Our capacity depends on the particular tine alloy that you specify, but ask and we will always try to accommodate even your largest components

Silver Plating

Silver gives excellent anti-fretting properties as well as providing a corrosion resistant surface. It also has high electrical conductivity.

Poeton offer a specialist silver-plating service (Apticote 600) for Defence and Aerospace from the One Stop Shop facility at the UK Cardiff site, with applications for anti-bonding and anti-fretting, as well as for electronic parts.

The silver formulation we use contains a brightener to improve the electrical contact properties, and the coating thickness is typically in the range 10 to 25 microns. We can handle large parts up to 50 kg and 1 m in length.

Thermal Spraying

Poeton offer a major thermal spraying service, with all the necessary Aerospace and Defence approvals, including NADCAP.

Our facilities include plasma, flame and wire spraying, applying the full range of metals, alloys, ceramics and cermets. Our 6 axis robotic manipulation facility is fully PC controlled, and our services are backed by a highly capable laboratory, guaranteeing quality and traceability.

We are particularly accomplished at applying the highest quality thermal barrier and abradable coatings.

For more details, follow (Apticote 800), and please contact us to discuss details of your specific components and coating requirements.

Non-Destructive Testing

Comprehensive NDT is an integral part of our OSS service for defence and aerospace customers. We have facilities for Magnetic Flaw Detection, Dye Penetrant Inspection, Etch Inspection, Hardness Testing and Optical Microscopy. The high level of staff qualification and equipment standards ensures full compliance to prime contractor specifications, on site and without the delays associated with using an outside service

Magnetic Particle Inspection (MPI) or Magnetic Flaw Detection (MFD)

For detection of surface and sub-surface imperfections, and indications on ferromagnetic materials, including materials that have been treated with a non-magnetic coating up to 50 micron (0.002") in thickness.

Liquid Penetrant Inspection (LPI) or Penetrant Flaw Detection (PFD)

Utilising fluorescent techniques for the detection of surface imperfections and conditions on all material, regardless of their mechanical or material properties, such as metals, plastics, composite materials etc.

Etch Inspection

Used for detecting grinding abuse, particularly in Hard Chrome Plating.
The technique involves a sequence of acid etches which highlight the soft or hard phases produced by poor and inconsistent grinding.
The parts are inspected in natural light, the etch revealing the defects as white areas.

Heat-Treatment

Poeton have a wide range of fully calibrated ovens for the strict heat-treatment sequences specified for stress-relieving and de-embrittlement of critical aerospace and defence parts. This includes pre and post treatment of parts that are being chrome plated, cadmium plated or treated by any process that might bring the risk of hydrogen embrittlement.

Over sizes range up to 3 meters, so that we can meet the volume and length demands of most aerospace and defence components.

We also have a full technical support laboratory with Optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy, Metallography, Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, Wear and Corrosion Testing.  Please see our Technical Assistance Section.

Technical Data Sheet

Please click here if you would like further information from our technical data sheet (220KB).