How Do You Navigate All the Different Paint Corrosion Specifications as a Powder Coating or Fabricating Job Shop?

If you’re a powder coater or fabrication shop, you’ve probably seen it happen: a new job comes in with a long list of corrosion requirements, test standards, and coating specs that don’t always line up. One customer asks for a specific salt spray result, another references a standard you rarely see, and a third expects everything to be “per spec” without much clarification.

Corrosion specifications are meant to protect performance, but for job shops, they can quickly become a source of confusion, risk, and added cost. The challenge isn’t just meeting the spec—it’s understanding what the spec is actually asking for and how it affects your process.

At Americo Chemical Products, we work with job shops every day to help them navigate corrosion requirements without overcomplicating their finishing process.

Why Corrosion Specifications Feel So Complicated

Corrosion specs come from many different places. OEMs, engineers, and end users often pull requirements from industry standards, internal documents, or past projects. As a result, shops are left sorting through terminology that may not be clearly defined or consistently applied.

Some of the most common challenges include:

• Multiple specs that overlap or conflict
• Requirements that focus on test results without explaining process expectations
• Assumptions that all parts and environments are the same
• Limited guidance on surface preparation and pretreatment

For a shop running different parts, substrates, and customers every day, this creates uncertainty. Without clarity, it’s easy to overprocess parts or miss a requirement entirely.

What Corrosion Specifications Are Really Trying to Achieve

While the language varies, most corrosion specifications aim to answer the same basic question: Will this coating protect the part in its intended environment for the expected service life?

That protection depends on several factors working together:

• Proper surface cleaning and pretreatment
• Correct coating selection and thickness
• Consistent application and curing
• Compatibility between substrates and coating systems

Salt spray hours, humidity testing, or cyclic corrosion tests don’t guarantee performance on their own. They’re indicators that measure how well the entire system performs under harsh conditions. Understanding this helps shops focus on what truly matters rather than chasing numbers alone.

Where Job Shops Often Get Caught Off Guard

Corrosion failures rarely come from a single mistake. More often, they result from small gaps in the process that only show up after testing or field exposure.

Common trouble spots include:

• Treating all corrosion specs the same, regardless of environment
• Assuming coating thickness alone ensures performance
• Overlooking the role of cleaning and pretreatment
• Not accounting for mixed metals or part geometry
• Relying on past success without adjusting for new requirements

Without a clear strategy, shops can spend time and money reacting to failures instead of preventing them.