Agriculture, Construction and Earthmoving

Machines in this segment are built from heavy plate, sheet, tube and castings, welded into large assemblies and painted as fabrications rather than as flat panels. The buyer is an equipment manufacturer or a fabricator in its supply chain. The machine works outdoors for its whole life, exposed to sun, rain, mud, stone strike, diesel and hydraulic oil, fertiliser and repeated high-pressure washing, and the finish is expected to stay intact through all of it. Where the duty has to be written down, the usual reference is ISO 12944: it classifies the corrosivity of the environment and expresses expected life as a durability range, which is the time to first major maintenance and not a guarantee. This range and Automotive Coatings meet on substrate and on process, since both finish steel with primer, intermediate and topcoat, and they separate on end use and service life. A road vehicle body is finished to a showroom surface and is supported afterwards by a refinish chain. An off-highway machine is a working tool: the film has to survive stone strike, mud, fertiliser and pressure washing for the service life of the machine, it is repaired in the yard or in the field rather than in a body shop, and appearance is held to the brand fleet colour rather than to a class A surface. Arctic’s range for the segment covers the whole build, from the anti-corrosive primer on prepared steel to the topcoat that carries that colour.

Geometry is the defining constraint. Wet paint pulls back from sharp edges, corners and cut lines as it flows and cures, so the film is thinnest exactly where the steel is most exposed, and weld seams add spatter, oxide and undercut for it to bridge. Corrosion on a machine almost always starts at an edge or a seam and then creeps back under the film. The range is built around that: a primer that wets and holds on prepared steel and fills the blast profile, a stripe coat or extra pass on edges and welds before the general coat, and a high-build topcoat that carries enough film in one application to cover weld texture and hold an even appearance on vertical plate without sagging. Where a shop cannot run two coats, a direct-to-metal finish gives single-pass protection on lighter fabrications, brackets and attachments. One coat carries less total film than a primer and topcoat system and therefore protects less, so it belongs on secondary parts and milder exposure rather than on the main structure.

Application is conventional wet spray, and the plant it needs is worth stating plainly. The shop needs degreasing and a mechanical or abrasive preparation stage, because adhesion and corrosion life are settled by surface preparation before any coating is chosen. Cleanliness is assessed against the rust grades and preparation grades in ISO 8501-1, and the roughness the blast leaves is a separate assessment to ISO 8503. Abrasive blasting needs its own enclosure, dust extraction and abrasive handling, and blasted steel flash rusts, so it has to be primed while the surface is still clean and dry rather than left standing between shifts. Spraying needs a ventilated booth with filtration, clean dry compressed air with oil and water separation, mixing or metering for two-pack materials, and either a force-dry oven or a clean bay for ambient cure. Solvent-borne materials bring flammable storage, extraction and the associated fire precautions. Two-pack polyurethane topcoats contain isocyanate hardeners, so standard industry practice is supplied-air respiratory protection and trained operators. A dry film thickness gauge and a controlled light source for colour checking complete the minimum set. This segment is a new capability area for Arctic Materials, and each product is supplied with a Technical Data Sheet and a Safety Data Sheet stating the system it belongs to.

Thin-film primers applied on the blast line to plate, sheet and section before cutting, forming and welding. They hold prepared steel against flash rust through fabrication and storage. The low-film grade is formulated so the shop can weld and flame cut through it with controlled porosity in the seam, and the higher-film holding grade is ground back locally at the seam instead, which is the trade between holding time and weld behaviour.

Two-pack epoxy anti-corrosive primers and high-build sandable surfacers for prepared steel fabrications. This is where the corrosion protection and most of the film build sit in a three-coat system: the primer wets the blast profile and takes a stripe coat on edges and weld seams, and the surfacer fills weld texture and carries the flexibility that chip and gravel zones need.

Two-pack aliphatic acrylic polyurethane topcoats that carry the fleet colour and take the ultraviolet load. Aliphatic chemistry is used because it holds gloss and colour outdoors where epoxy chalks, and the two sheen levels exist because high gloss shows every ripple in a large welded panel while satin does not.

Single-product finishes that give adhesion, anti-corrosive pigmentation and final appearance in one application on cleaned and abraded steel. They exist to take brackets, guards, frames, attachments and repair work through the paint bay in one pass, at lower total film and therefore lower protection than a primer and topcoat build. The epoxy grade is for milder and partly shaded exposure, and the aliphatic polyurethane grade for parts that stay in sun.

Finishes for parts that leave the main fabrication route: cab shells, panels, mudguards, steps, tanks, guards and bought-in components sprayed on jigs or racks. They are formulated for a short schedule, for ambient or moderate force dry, and for the fluid and cleaning chemical exposure that engine bays, hydraulic assemblies and agricultural bodywork see.

The figures below are the typical operating window for this range, not a measured result for any one batch. Confirmed values are issued with the Technical Data Sheet and Certificate of Analysis by our laboratory.

Every grade in the range is liquid spray applied, and the result is settled before any of it reaches the gun. Steel is degreased, then blast cleaned to Sa 2½ where the shop has a blast facility, or mechanically prepared to St 3 where it does not, and the profile the blast leaves is assessed separately from the cleanliness grade, with the comparator segment matched to the abrasive in use. Blasted steel flash rusts within hours in Indian humidity, so it is primed while the surface is still clean and dry rather than left standing between shifts. Where the shop runs an automatic blast-and-prime line, Arcterra PR 110 goes on at 15 to 25 µm and the plate is then cut, formed and welded through the film. That low build is deliberate: weld porosity and fume both rise with primer thickness, so the line controls the applied film rather than treating the figure as a minimum. Where fabrications are stored between operations, PR 140 carries more film and holds the steel for longer, and seams on that grade are ground back locally before welding instead of being welded straight through.

The build is applied in the order the geometry demands, not the order the parts arrive. Wet film pulls back from sharp edges, corners, cut lines and weld crowns as it flows and cures, so the film is thinnest exactly where the steel is most exposed, and corrosion on a machine almost always starts at an edge or a seam and then creeps back under the coating. Arcterra EP 210 is therefore applied first as a stripe coat by brush or small gun on edges, corners and welds, and only then as the general coat at 50 to 80 µm. Weld spatter, oxide and undercut are removed mechanically before that stripe pass, because no primer bridges a sharp spatter bead. EP 260 follows where chip and gravel duty applies, at 80 to 150 µm on lower panels, wheel arches, undercarriage areas and anything in the path of thrown stone, and it is sanded where the topcoat needs a flatted surface. PU 320 or PU 360 completes the build. Recoat and overcoating intervals are stated per system and are not assumed: an epoxy primer left outdoors past its interval is washed, abraded and dried before the topcoat, or the topcoat will sit on a chalked surface. Where adhesion is checked on the line, cross-cut is used on single thin coats and pull-off on the finished build, because the cross-cut method stops being applicable once total film passes 250 µm.

Cure is the constraint that separates this segment from panel work. An excavator boom, a harvester chassis or a crane section will not go through a small oven, so the range is built to reach full properties at ambient or under a moderate force dry rather than a high bake. At 20 to 25 °C a two-pack film is through-dry overnight and reaches full hardness and chemical resistance over 5 to 7 days, and a part moved, stacked or strapped before that will take handling marks that look like a paint fault and are not one. Where a shop has a bay it can warm, 60 to 80 °C for 20 to 40 minutes buys back most of that time. Substrate temperature is held at least 3 °C above dew point through application and flash-off, ambient relative humidity is controlled where possible, and pot life shortens sharply as shop temperature rises, so mixed material is worked to the clock in summer rather than to the label figure. The bay needs clean dry compressed air with oil and water separation, mixing or metering for two-pack materials, filtration and extraction, and a dry film thickness gauge in use on the line rather than in a drawer. Two-pack polyurethanes contain isocyanate hardeners, so standard industry practice is supplied-air respiratory protection and trained operators.

The choice between the three-coat build and a direct-to-metal single coat is an economic decision with a technical floor under it, and it is worth stating in those terms. A primer, surfacer and topcoat build is three spray passes, two flash-off periods, two handling moves and, in most shops, more than one bay visit, and it delivers 180 to 320 µm of total film with the corrosion protection, the chip resistance and the ultraviolet durability each sitting in the layer designed for it. Arcterra DT 410 collapses that to one pass at 60 to 80 µm, which removes two passes, two flash-offs and the bay time between them. What it cannot do is carry the same total film, and coating life over steel tracks film build closely, so a single coat protects less. That is why DT 410 belongs on brackets, guards, mudguards, frames, attachments and repair work in milder exposure, and not on the main structure of a machine sold against a corrosivity category of C4. DT 450 sits between the two, reaching 80 to 120 µm with aliphatic chemistry, for parts that need the single coat route but stay on show. Where the shop has a blast facility and a bay it can schedule, the three-coat build is the specification; where it does not, the single coat grades are the honest answer rather than a thinned version of the full system.

Ultraviolet behaviour is what the customer sees years later, and it decides resale appearance. Epoxy binders chalk under sunlight: the surface resin degrades, pigment is left loose on the surface, gloss falls and the colour goes pale and dusty. Chalking is a surface effect and does not by itself remove the corrosion protection underneath, but it is the reason the epoxy grades stay below the topcoat, and the reason DT 410, which is an epoxy direct-to-metal grade, belongs on secondary parts rather than on a visible surface in full sun. The exterior durability of the range sits in the aliphatic isocyanate hardener in PU 320, PU 360, DT 450 and CM 510. Aromatic isocyanates are cheaper and yellow and chalk quickly outdoors, so they have no place on an exterior machine finish. Colour choice matters as much as chemistry: strong reds, oranges and yellows built on organic pigments fade faster in strong sun than inorganic pigmentation in the same binder, and a fleet colour that has to hold for a decade is worth agreeing on pigmentation and not only on the colour chip. Film build also matters, because a topcoat applied thin loses gloss sooner than the same material at specification thickness. A machine is judged on appearance at resale, often eight or ten years after it left the shop, and by then the difference between a chalked finish and one that has held its colour is visible across a yard.

In service, the two loads that find a weak film are fluid and washing. Diesel, hydraulic fluid, engine oil, fertiliser and slurry attack an undercured film far more readily than a through-cured one, which is the practical reason for respecting the cure schedule before a machine is fuelled and commissioned. CM 540 is the grade for engine bays, hydraulic and fuel tanks, booms and spreader bodies where that exposure is continuous. High-pressure washing loads the film mechanically and thermally at the same time, and a hot lance held close to a seam or an edge will cut through any coating, so wash pressure, lance distance and water temperature are agreed with the operator and written into the specification rather than left to the yard. Accelerated tests are used in the same spirit: neutral salt spray and xenon arc exposure rank systems and confirm batch-to-batch consistency, and neither converts into a number of years outdoors. Every grade is supplied with a Technical Data Sheet and a Safety Data Sheet stating the system it belongs to, and a compliance dossier for the specified system is issued on request.

Arctic specifies a system, not a single tin, and the specification follows from what the machine is and what the shop can do. The questions below are the ones that have to be answered before a recommendation is worth anything. Most of them can be answered in a single conversation with the paint shop and the design office together.

• What is the part and where does it sit on the machine? Main structure, boom, chassis, cab, panel, tank, guard, bracket or attachment. Structure and attachments do not get the same build, and the answer decides between the three-coat system and a direct-to-metal grade straight away.
• What corrosivity category and durability range does the machine have to meet? If the requirement is written down it is usually expressed as a corrosivity category to ISO 12944-2 and a durability range to ISO 12944-1, which is time to first major maintenance and not a guarantee. If it is not written down, the territory, the exposure and the expected service life are enough to place it.
• What surface preparation can the shop actually deliver? An automatic blast line, a manual blast booth, or power tool preparation only. This determines whether a shop primer stage is available, which epoxy primer applies, and what corrosion life can honestly be claimed for the finished machine.
• Is there welding or cutting after priming? If plate is primed on a line and fabricated afterwards, the specification starts at PR 110 and the applied film has to be controlled for weld porosity and fume. If parts are stored between operations instead, PR 140 holds them longer and the seams are ground back before welding. If fabrication is complete before any paint, the shop primer stage can be dropped.
• What cure is available, and what are the largest dimensions? Ambient only, a warm bay, or a force dry oven with its usable internal size and maximum temperature. A fabrication that will not fit the oven sets the cure schedule for the whole system.
• What is the throughput target and the bay time available per unit? This is where the three-coat and single coat routes separate on cost. The comparison is passes, flash-offs, handling moves and bay occupancy against total film and protection, and it is worth doing in the shop’s own numbers.
• Which surfaces are in the stone and gravel path? Lower panels, wheel arches, undercarriage and the areas behind tracks and tyres. Naming them decides where EP 260 is applied and at what build, rather than coating the whole machine to the worst case.
• What fluids and chemicals does each area meet? Diesel, hydraulic fluid, engine oil, fertiliser, slurry, crop chemicals or nothing beyond rain and mud. Continuous fluid exposure moves the specification to CM 540 for those assemblies.
• How is the machine washed in service? Pressure, water temperature, lance distance, detergent and frequency. Hot high-pressure washing close in is a design load on the coating and has to be specified, not discovered.
• What are the fleet colours and the required sheen? A physical sample, sprayed panel or colour standard is needed, and the match is agreed on a sprayed panel at production gloss and film build. High gloss on unflatted welded plate will show every ripple, so the sheen decision is taken with the substrate in front of you.
• How long must the colour hold, and in what sun? A fleet colour expected to look right at resale after a decade in strong sun constrains pigment choice as well as binder choice, and it rules out the epoxy direct-to-metal grade on visible surfaces. That is worth settling before a formula is recorded.
• What inspection is applied, and by whom? Dry film thickness readings, adhesion by cross-cut on thin coats or pull-off on the full build, and who signs the record. Agreeing the method and the acceptance figure before production avoids an argument over a test that was never applicable to that film thickness.
• Who else sprays this colour? Component suppliers, cab builders, dealer repair shops and field service. Where the recorded tinting formula has to be reissued to nominated third parties so that cabs, attachments and replacement panels match the machine, say so at specification stage.
• What documentation does the end customer require? Technical and Safety Data Sheets are supplied with every grade. Where a tender or an export customer needs a compliance dossier or a declaration for the specified system, it is issued on request.

The Technical Data Sheet, Safety Data Sheet and regulatory declaration for any grade in this range are issued by our laboratory against the substrate and process you are running. Tell us the job and we will specify against it.