Every coating test has one goal: find the weak spot before the customer does.
A panel in the lab is a much better place to catch a failure than a part that has already shipped. (It’s cheaper, too.)
Because once a problem shows up in the field, everyone has a theory. Was it the cleaner? Pretreatment? Paint? Cure? Handling?
And there’s more than one way for a coating to go wrong.
Corrosion can creep in from a scratch. The coating can lose its grip on the metal. It can crack when the part takes a hit or gets bent.
Here’s what four of the most common coating tests can tell you. (Oh, and Steelcote™, our sludge-free zirconium pretreatment, goes through all of these tests and then some. Curious what those results look like? More on that at the end.)
→ Neutral salt spray: what happens once corrosion finds a way in?
A line is cut through the coating to expose bare metal. The panel goes into continuous salt fog under controlled conditions and stays there.
Some specs call for 250 hours. Others want 500, 750, 1,000. The longer it runs, the more time corrosion has to find a weakness.
And 1,000 hours is 41 days and 16 hours of nonstop salt fog.
What you’re checking: How far corrosion traveled away from the scratch.
A good result:Not much travel. Limited creep, little to no red rust, no major blistering or lifting. The coating kept the damage contained.
→ Cross-hatch adhesion: will the coating stay put once it’s cut?
A bladed cutter scores a grid through the coating down to the metal. Tape gets pressed over the grid and pulled away fast.
Then you see what came away with it.
What you’re checking: The tape, and the intersections in the grid. That’s where a coating starts letting go first.
A good result:5B — every square held and the tape came away clean. The scale runs down to 0B, where most of the grid detached and you’re looking at bare metal.
→ Direct impact: can the coating take a hit?
A weight is dropped onto the coated face of the panel. The metal dents instantly and the coating has to stretch with it.
The dent is part of the test. It’s supposed to be there.
What you’re checking: The coating around the edge of the dent.
A good result:No cracking, flaking or lifting at the edges. The coating moved with the metal instead of losing its grip.
→ Conical mandrel bend: can the coating bend without breaking?
The panel gets bent around a cone-shaped mandrel. One end of the cone is wide, the other end comes to a point, so a single bend puts the coating through gentle curves and severe ones at the same time.
The coating usually handles the wide end fine. Somewhere along the way, as the bend gets tighter, it stops keeping up.
What you’re checking: Where along the bend the cracking starts.
A good result: The coating stayed intact the whole way down the cone. If there is cracking, that spot tells you how tight this coating can go before it gives out.
So what does a full set of results get you?
Evidence of how the coating performs under pressure.
Each test pushes it a different way. Together, they show whether the coating can hold back corrosion, stay attached, and move with the metal without cracking or lifting.
And it’s the whole system on trial, not one layer. The condition of the metal, the cleaning, the pretreatment, the paint, the cure — all of it shows up on that panel.
Now, about those Steelcote™ panels…
Sludge-free is good.
Sludge-free chemistry that holds up is better.
That’s why we put Steelcote™-treated panels through all four tests, including 1,000 hours of neutral salt spray.
We’re bringing the actual panels to FabTech 2026, so you can inspect the results for yourself.
Find the proof at CPI Booth #S10019.
When: October 21–23, 2026 Where: Las Vegas Convention Center
Take a look at everything we’re bringing to FabTech.
