ommercial and residential building developers and architects don’t want their projects to start looking shabby after a couple decades due to weathering or other environmental factors. When they wish to clad buildings in coated metal panels or specify metal roofing and trim, they want a material that will look almost new for a very long time.
Metalescent coil and extrusion coating systems have long been specified for their classic aesthetics and lasting performance. Three-coat 70% PVDF metallic systems are widely accepted as the industry standard among builders and architects who want to make a lasting impression.
Over the last 30-plus years, Sherwin-Williams has tested thousands of metalescent coating formulations on natural outdoor exposure to develop its new coating system with enhanced performance and expanded aesthetic options, but it uses only two coats rather than three. The product, just introduced to the market this year, is Fluropon Continuum 70% PVDF Coating System.
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“This is a PVDF coating with a proven track record of durability. The data we gathered over decades looked at different raw materials within [our basic] formulation. People expect us to move quickly and they may believe that chemists have an aha moment, but that’s far from the truth,” Beaudry says. Instead, chemists study massive amounts of data and follow trends over time. “We put a lot of panels out and tested them and watched what works and what doesn’t.”
Regarding the chemistry for Continuum, he says, “We started some of this testing 20 years ago and put it out without a clear coat, expecting it would fade faster, and we would be able to see that. So we did a bunch of those studies and, after 20 years went by, we found that this one product would not fade. Others failed,” but the Continuum formulas “went on looking better than those with the clear coat on.
“We have over 150,000 panels at the testing sites at any given time. We have Fluropon panels out there that were placed in the 1960s. They still look good and have good integrity,” Beaudry says.
“Whenever we look at new raw materials or new pigments, customers do a production run and send us coated panels to test. We have quarterly visits, continue to look at all our studies, and the team reports which products are performing, and which are not.”
There are many tests that go faster, like salt spray and other cyclical tests—wet, dry, wet dry—simulating real-world conditions. But that’s only a portion of the environment. There is also sun and wind. “Natural weathering takes a long time but the data is more valuable,” he says.
In that example, the two-coat system retained more gloss than the three-coat system.
“This goes beyond the cost savings,” Beaudry says of the implications. “There is less material used. In most coating operations, you can apply two coatings in one pass. The applicator must then run the coil through the line a second time for the clear coat.” Without that step, “there is more control. Less is more. You are taking out a variable.
The same is true for extruders,” he says.
As the product launches, Sherwin-Williams is working with architects to sample and develop colors. “They work with our laboratories directly. Over the years, as we learned new formulations that worked well, they went up into buildings, but it wasn’t this exact same set of raw materials. There is a tremendous amount of interest in the latest formulation,” Beaudry notes.
According to Beaudry, “Our warranties are based on actual data. When we look at panels that have 20 or 30 years of exposure, that’s what we build the warranty around. We can see there is no difference between the sample held inside and the one outside for 22 years.”
With the Continuum formulation, the performance was “exceeding our existing warranties. That’s where we got the confidence to increase the warranty.”