Ours is a history of industrial coating that focuses on e-coating process. A treatment that, on the one hand, reminds us of our roots and, on the other, projects us into a European and international dimension.
In order to understand a story, it is necessary to define its context: we are in the early ’60s, in the period that has been defined as the “Italian economic miracle“, an era between the ’50s and ’60s of the 20th century characterized by economic boom and technological development, established after the initial phase of reconstruction after the Second World War.
It was a time of opportunities and new needs, both in the private and industrial sphere, which laid the foundations of today’s world: new entrepreneurial realities linked to the most diverse product sectors were born, accompanied by an entire ecosystem of companies with the aim of providing services to those realities that required them and decided to rely on external partners specialized in the execution and supply of certain processes and materials.
It was against this backdrop that our company was founded, in 1962, by Romeo Zoccarato, who, having acquired many years of experience in the field of precision coating, decided to launch his own industrial coating business with the same spirit that animated his days: love for his work and respect for his clients, precision workmanship and attention to detail, order and cleanliness.
It’s a story with a strong local flavor, in a path of continuous growth: from the origins, in which space and personnel were limited to those of a workshop, to the present day, in which 180 people work in an area of 50,000m², making our company one of the most important industrial coatings companies serving the world’s most prestigious industries.
As mentioned, it is also a period of technological development: consolidated practices are no longer enough, scenarios never seen before open up and production possibilities that until a few years earlier seemed precluded. These are the iconic years of television and cinema, of the spread of well-being and the use of durable consumer goods (think of refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines), of cars and highways as we understand them today, capable of connecting the whole country, bringing together and putting in contact geographically distant realities, the years of the dawn of mass tourism. As habits and customs are changing, so are working processes, influenced by cultural contamination and emerging technologies.
This economic and social drive naturally goes hand in hand with the increase in competition, with a number of companies starting to offer similar products and solutions: the need to differentiate themselves thus emerges. It is also for these reasons that the quality of the workmanship is increasingly appreciated and sought after by the manufacturing and commercial sector.
And here, in the continuous search for improvement, we saw the foresight and entrepreneurial spirit of Romeo Zoccarato: to the typical liquid and subsequently powder coating, he decided to combine a treatment technology that had never been seen in our country yet, discovered in its research and study paths conducted throughout Europe: this is how in the early 1980s Zoccarato opens up on the market as one of the first companies with epoxy e-coating treatment.
It is a turning point: epoxy e-coating allows to protect metal products from corrosion like no other type of coating, making any article treated with it almost incorruptible from external agents. And given that many of these items are in close contact with rain, snow, earth, sun, wind and salt, it is easy to understand how this is not just a “simple” aesthetic paint, but a real factor capable of providing a added value to the original product, extending its life cycle and increasing its quality also from the point of view of the end customer.
Not surprisingly, this is a technology that is still extremely widespread in the automotive, earth-moving machinery and materials, nautical and furniture sectors, just to name a few.
The process carried out in our plant consists of several initial stages of cleaning and pre-treatment, where through alkaline solutions, mains water, phosphating with zinc salts, demi and passivation, the artifacts are prepared for the actual treatment by epoxy e-coating. These are necessary steps, sought by the highest quality standards and required by industrial specifications, to make the process itself flawless and subsequently ensure that the paint settles without any kind of problem.
(In the following video, the artifacts come out of the alkaline tank of our epoxy e-coating plant, ready to move on to the second step of the washing and pre-treatment process.)
After these steps, the epoxy e-coating takes place: in short, it is a process by electrodeposition with which the products, previously connected to the negative pole of an electric generator, are introduced into a large tank where electrodes connected to the positive pole. The developing electric field gives rise to electrochemical phenomena that cause the paint to deposit on the piece.
Before entering the oven, a further stage certifies the quality of the treatment: the products are washed with ultrafilter, the liquid part of the bath from which the pigmentation is removed, extracted with a special instrument, which then falls back into the tank to minimize paint leaks.
In conclusion, as with other industrial painting techniques, the product enters the oven which, at the correct temperature, will polymerize the paint making it permanent.
After years of constant expansion and improvement, currently our epoxy e-coating plant is of considerable size in terms of daily production capacity and the size of the items that can be handled, as well as for the extreme quality of the service offered. The system, which is automated and controlled remotely thanks to video terminals, is managed by highly qualified staff and the contents of its tanks are checked several times a day in a dedicated laboratory.
It is also for this reason that we can consider it as the heart of our company, a strength capable of differentiating both the customers who rely on it and our own reality, which over the years has catamade it an essential strength.
Zoccarato, 60 years of history and successful projects: on the one hand it reminds us of our roots and our entrepreneurial history, on the other it projects us into a European and international dimension.