Coatings

Using coatings on metal components and tools is becoming increasingly popular and necessary, as these items are required to perform tasks that are beyond the capabilities of the base metal. One of the main reasons for using coatings is to increase the surface hardness far beyond the ability of conventional heat treatment. This is where Physical Vapour Deposited (PVD) type coatings are particularly useful. Their hardness is typically 3-4 times harder than heat treated steel, and because the coating follows the shape of the component exactly and are only typically 3 microns thick, often no tolerance change is necessary to accommodate the coating.

Tecvac, part of The Wallwork Group, offer a range of Ultra hard PVD coatings deposited by electron beam evaporation, it is the smoothest and most defect-free method of PVD coating. The coatings offered cover most applications but high quality nature of the coatings make them more suitable for high value precision components and tools such as, surgical implants and instruments, gas turbine blades, motorsport components, coining dies etc.

Tecvac also offers a contract Ion Implantation service. This is carried out under vacuum at low temperatures and imparts hardness and fatigue resistance to the material without any risk of distortion. It is especially suitable for very high precision items that are not suitable for coating at elevated temperatures.