Happy New Years from your One Stop Railing Shop! With the new year comes new ways AS&D can help you and your business prosper.

The team at American Structures & Design, Inc would like to thank you for helping us closeout another year, knowing the foundation of our success is only because of the goodwill of those people we serve.

It is our pleasure this holiday season to say thank you and we want to wish you, your co-workers and family a Safe and Happy Holiday season and truly hope that the best is yet to come for everybody in the new year.

With 2013 just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to reflect on 2012 and make note of the product highlights of the past year.

American Structures & Design, Inc has always focused on expanding our product lines to include maintenance free products that are on the cutting edge of design. With the expansion of our product lines we also have the desire to manufacture and fabricate these products in house from an inventory of stock materials. Luckily for us and for all our customers we have seen continued success in both these categories the past year. Listed below are the products we added to our lineup in year of 2012.
• Arteferro Inox – Stainless Steel Railing Systems
• New Push-Lock™ and Pull-Lock™ fittings for 1/8” and 3/16” cable
• DIY Cable railing assembly kits
• Aluminum Balconies / Decks
• Aluminum Sunshade systems

American Structures & Design, Inc invites all architects, designers, contractors and fabricators to visit us at the BUILDEX EXPRESS show.

October 27, 2010 , 10 AM – 2 PM

Print the pass below for complimentary access to this all-inclusive tradeshow for the construction industry. You’ll be able to visit over 125 exhibits, get some insight into new building products and styles. Enjoy FREE food and beverages, supplied by BUILDEX. And the best part, network with over 1,500 approved industry professionals.

Pay us a visit, make some connections and get out of the office!

We look forward to seeing you there,
The Team @ American Structures & Design, Inc

(Remember, trade show attendees must be industry professionals in the design, building or property management markets. Non-exhibiting suppliers, distributors and the general public are not permitted to attend this show.)

The two leading types of paint finishes for exterior metal products that we use on our products are Wet coat/baked enamel and Powder Coat . Depending on what product you choose for your project will typically be the deciding factor for which type of paint finish that it will have and Contrary to what you may hear these products are different and as time will tell most likely perform differently.

Powder Coating involves three basic steps. These processes can be done in very expensive and elaborate facilities or believe it or not in somebody’s garage With any painting process the prep is very important and done with chemicals.

1. Part preparation / pre-treatment Chemical pre-treatments involve the use of phosphates or chromates in submersion or spray application. These often occur in multiple stages and consist of degreasing, etching, de-smutting, various rinses and the final phosphating or chromating of the substrate. The pre-treatment process both cleans and improves bonding of the powder to the metal.. It is also the biggest difference between the many powder coaters we have worked with over the years. Most facilities are not equipped with the proper cleaning facilities to give you a ready piece of material for coating.
2. The powder application, The most common way of applying the powder coating to metal objects is to spray the powder using an electrostatic gun. The object is then heated, and the powder melts into a uniform film, and is then cooled to form a hard coating.
3. Curing. This cure process, requires a certain temperature for a certain length of time in order to reach full cure and establish the full film properties for which the material was designed. Normally the powders cure at 200°C (390°F) for 10 minutes.

Advantages are:

1. Powder coatings emit zero or near zero volatile organic compounds.
2. Powder coating overspray can be recycled and thus it is possible to achieve nearly 100% use of the coating.
3. Small jobs are much more cost effective than using a Baked Enamel/Wet coat

Disadvantages are:

1. Very hard and expensive to get Written warranty from powder coaters due to powder coatings will break down when exposed to UV rays between 5 to 10 years
2. Touch up colors very hard to match powder colors
3. Scratches are very noticeable due to powder is much thicker than Baked Enamel/Wet coat

Liquid Coat/baked enamel is the type of paint that most people think of when paint is mentioned. It comes in liquid form and is sprayed to a substrate. The types of paint can vary allowing you to pick how the paint will hold up to certain elements, discolor/oxidize and how long it will last. The process of applying the paint can be done vertically or horizontally .Since our products consist of Aluminum extrusions I am going describe the vertical Paint line system which is how 99 percent of our material is coated. This vertical line is a state of the art multimillion dollar paint line and every step is in a controlled environment. The paint of choice is a Duracron coating manufactured by PPG who isthe leading paint manufacturer in the world. The first stage is a five stage pre treatment process. It is then cured prior to printing. The paint process is done on a vertical pint line which carries the extrusions from the beginning to the end of the process and electro statically applied so the finish is very thin and consistent. The materials are then run thru the oven process. This cures the paint giving a fish that cannot be obtained by just spraying paint to a substrate.

Advantages are:

1. Custom Colors are easily mixed and able to reproduce.
2. Finish is thinner than powder coating so touching up is easier and less noticed
3. Written Warranties from the paint manufacturers are easily obtained

Disadvantages are:

1. Small jobs are not economical
2. Lead times tend to be longer

In closing, Working with these paints for thirty plus years(longer than Most paint warranties) has allowed me to see the Advantages of each type of paint and how each of them perform over time. We utilize both types of paint in our business but the majority of our products are liquid coated /Baked enamel. This is mainly due to the fact we believe the quality of the paint and process is superior for our type of product . Most important when comes to getting a written warranty for our customers it has never been an issue or a fictitious piece of paper.

Not sure if American Structures & Design, Inc is really the company for you? See what others are saying. Recently we uploaded our reviews to the “Review Us” section of our blog. Just click on the tab at the top of this page. You can click on the reviewers name to view the original review on the original website.

Thanks,
The American Structures Team