Editorial Magazine 2020/3
A NEW DECADE STARTS WITH 2021
“Quality” will be the key word
Happy New Year/Happy New Decade and Happy “Aluminium”
Surface treatment is rather like a dressing for aluminium with the dual purpose of protecting (from corrosion) while finishing and embellishing the product. “DON’T LEAVE IT BARE” was the often repeated slogan at a convention in Budapest many years ago together with the word “quality” which was the subject of numerous papers and debates.
The reason is that the surface treatment concept is automatically associated with that of quality since finish would be useless in the absence of quality: paradoxically, it would be better not to treat the surface at all. It is easy to talk about quality, but how can it be achieved?
First, by knowing the rules, not by just thinking about saving. Quality checks must be conducted in the plant, the laboratory must be adequately equipped, contacts should be made with the right consultants with associations and quality marks in mind. When can it be achieved? Now it may be too late. Tomorrow will certainly be too late. There will be no more room. Even now, control authorities are increasing the provisions to comply with the qualitative standards of all products in European countries and also outside the EEC. I will leave the reply to the last query, “why better quality?” to the readers with a reminder that working towards quality, also indirectly, means “no or low scraps” thus less pollution and less energy consumption. It is also means a better image for aluminium in relation to wood, steel and plastic.
And following the previous message, “Happy New Year” is the most important message that the editorial office of Aluminium Finishing wishes to send to all its readers, mainly in these difficult time of pandemic.
But there is another wish which seems important to us: Happy Aluminium. In fact, if aluminium is in good health also we feel a bit better. For good health, I do not mean only a healthy market of aluminium as a material, but also the quality of the semis, a valuable finish, a finished product which has a nice appearance, a long life, a real winner.
We all really need good wishes. Filiform corrosion is the new sickness of painted aluminium and there is already somebody who bets again for anodized aluminium.
New large anodizing plants are being built in Europe and in the Far East. Who will win this new bet at the “end of the decade?”
We cannot know, but what’s important is that “aluminium” wins and that between painted and anodized finishes, the final winner is not a “nice” PVC window.
Walter Dalla Barba,
Editor and Chairman of the Aluminium Two Thousand World Congress 2022 and Alusurface 2021
