As we continue through the year, we are excited to be able to shift gears and head into the automotive industry. Our products have been fine-tuned over the past four decades, leading us to provide quality material options and production efficiencies.  

Our Focus 

Our focus is to reduce post-forming operations for our customers. What's unique about our process is that we can offer top-quality service in a coil-to-coil continuous operation, which means no variations in the finished product. Our thin anodic layer can be break-formed to a 4T bend, which means no post-forming anodizing is required.

Our Surfaces 

We have brushed finishes, semi-specular finishes, and matte finishes. These are all rolled-in finishes. They come into us as master coil and then go into a flash anodizing operation, very thin, about a 2 to 3-micron layer of anodizing. That is to provide color and to minimize the etching to the surface so it retains the integrity and the beauty of that rolled-in surface finish. It also provides a bonding agent, or bonding layer, for the PVD process.

 Can Our Products Be Printed On? 

One of the unique things about Alanod and our semi-finished products is that our products are printable. That can be done through our anodizing process, or it can be done through a primer that we put on the front side of the surface.

How Can Our Products Be Formed? 

We also offer primers for bonding and back injection on the back side. After forming, typically for automotive interior applications, there would be a back injection process through injection molding. We offer primers that will bond that surface to the plastic. Because our coating layers are so thin and the lacquers we use, we can provide a formable product. Our product can be formed, broken up to a 4T bend, and drawn up to a 10mm depth without crazing the surface. This is unique with Alanod surfaces and qualities and would result in not having to post anodize or post coat after forming.

What's New? 

We can offer perforated surfaces through our laser micro perforation process through partners that would provide backlighting, neat mood lighting, and directional indicators. It looks like a solid piece of metal until it's backlit, so it's immaculate. We also offer our ingrained molding macro structure that we can develop in combination with injection molding, where we put a foil thickness of our metal into the injection tooling, and it can pick up the 3D geometry structure in the tool and impress that upon the metal surface as it gets back injected. You will have a unique metal surface on the top cover.

Learn More About Alanod-Westlake's Amazing Products And Services

Contact us directly; we'll be happy to assist with your needs!