Fluidised bed treatment

A process for treating a treatment part of a component, the component having the treatment part and a non-treatment part, the process comprising:

• providing a treatment chamber having a bed of powder;
• flowing a fluidising gas into the treatment chamber from a fluidising gas inlet to fluidise the bed of powder;
• preventing loss of powder from the fluidised bed of powder entrained in the fluidising gas by providing a powder screen between the treatment chamber and a fluidising gas outlet from which the fluidising gas is removed from the treatment chamber;
• and
• moving the treatment chamber with respect to a source of pressurized fluidizing gas;
• moving the treatment chamber to surround only the treatment part of the component;
• contacting only the treatment part of the component with the fluidised bed of powder to treat the treatment part of the component;
• wherein:
• the fluidising gas inlet is supplied with the fluidising gas via a fluidising gas inlet conduit, and
• the fluidising gas inlet conduit is connected to the source of pressurised fluidising gas.