Environmentally protected outdoor devices
AssigneesScott Jay Lewin, Stanley Kotler, Alan H. Kepke
InventorScott J. Lewin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved protective coating, for parking meters or other equipment that is subject to environmental deterioration and/or vandalism, having thereon at least a three layer coating of a composite thickness sufficiently thick to avoid pinholes and sufficiently thin to avoid crazing and cracking due to variations in the ambient environment. The coating has a conventional lower layer of zinc on or proximate to the equipment surface (in the alternative the substrate may be a zinc part); a second layer of a thermosetting polymer that has been applied by a powder coating electrostatic method, and a third, top, coating of an epoxysiloxane polymer. The total coating thickness should preferably not exceed about 6 mils.
Claims5
A method of protecting articles that would otherwise, without said protection, have a clean and exposed bare ferrous metal surface that would be subject to oxidative deterioration upon exposure to ambient environment comprising:
- applying a zinc coating to a clean and exposed bare surface comprising the ferrous metal surface by dipping the article in a hot liquid bath comprising zinc, then subjecting the article to centrifugal force while the material on the article from the dip is still a hot liquid, thereby removing excess amounts of the zinc coating sufficient to produce a zinc rich coating having a surface that is partially smooth and partially rough;
- disposing a powder, comprising a meltable precursor of a non-epoxy, electrically insulating, organic thermosetting polymer, on said zinc coating;
- applying opposite polarity d.c. charges to the powder and the surface, respectively and heating the powder while the charges are applied under conditions sufficient to cause the powder to melt and flow across the zinc rich surface, to convert said powder into a thermosetting polymer, and to adhere said thermosetting polymer to said zinc rich surface;
- depositing a third coating composition comprising an epoxy modified polysiloxane on said thermosetting polymer in an amount and thickness such that said thermosetting polymer is substantially covered.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.