Institute of Materials Finishing

Institute of Materials Finishing updated their business hours.

contact Karen on 0121 6227387 for more information.

2017 AGM at the Cobden Hotel Birmingham

IMF Southern Branch Skittles Night
The IMF recently held a skittles night at the Northbrook Arms near Wi******er. This event is held most years and is in conjunction with the AGM.
The attendance was well represented and the Northbrook Arms provided us with an excellent buffet which was certainly well received....
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Institute of Materials Finishing
Southern Branch
Meeting 4th October 2017
The Southern Branch of the IMF held a mini symposium entitled “Sparks will Fly” on Wednesday 4th October at Lloyds Register Global Technology Centre based in Southampton.
The meeting was in conjunction with The Welding Institute and was a first in terms of a joint venture.
The subjects chosen for the evening were:
A History of Diving Helmets.
The chemical cleaning of weld scale prior to Surface Finishing
Determining the Thickness of TSA Coatings on Stainless Steel
The importance of Surface Inspection for crack detection in welded materials
The first speaker was John Bevan, chairman of the Historical Diving Society and he gave a talk on the history of how the diving helmet came into being in 1823 through to the present day.
Did you know that the first diving helmet was born out of a helmet designed to prevent smoke inhalation during fires?
Apparently the museum, based at Gosport in Hampshire, is claimed to be best diving museum in the world together with the best collection of diving equipment ranging from recreational to commercial/professional to military.
Our second speaker was John Burgess who gave a talk on how to pretreat welded ferrous materials.
Welded materials can leave detrimental fluxes and thermal gradients after manufacture and it the removal of these that is necessary to ensure good adhesion for either electroplating or painting.
John outlined the different stages of cleaning cycles that are required and particular attention was paid to the treatment of high tensile materials which can be very susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement leading to cracking of the material.
Our third speaker was Peter Ho, General Manager from Fischer Instrumentation who spoke about the measuring of thermal sprayed aluminium (TSA) on stainless steel using non-destructive instrumentation.
Peter described how thermal spraying was carried out using a wire or powder material together with a gas to spray it onto a substrate to form a coating primarily for corrosion protection.
He then went on to describe the different types of measuring devices from simple magnetic induction on carbon steels (up to 100mms depending upon the probe) to a phase sensitive eddy on stainless steels since most stainless steel is non-magnetic.
Typical thickness using these instruments is up to around 700 microns.
Our final speaker was Phil Lever who is a specialist NDT (Non destructive testing) at Lloyds Register.
Phil has worked mainly in the ship industry and his main role is to advise & train surveyors in the field on NDT appreciation and how it is applied.
He described the difference between penetrant and magnetic particle inspection.(MPI), how this was carried out and equipment that was used.
Equipment used was explained and he emphasised that it was mainly for surface defects.
Phil presented videos describing how various eddy current processes are used and these described the process very well
At the end of each presentation, questions were taken by the speakers, which led to a good constructive discussion amongst the audience.
The committee of the Southern Branch felt that the evening was very successful and would like to thank John Bevan, John Burgess, Peter Ho and Phil Lever for their time in giving the presentations and to Lloyd Register for hosting the evening
If you would like any further information regarding the IMF please contact Helen Wood at [email protected]

Upcoming Seminar for the IMF entitled "Let the Sparks Fly"
This will be held on Wednesday 4th October at 17-30.
The venue will be at Lloyds register in Southampton.
anyone interested can post me or contact [email protected].
There are 4 speakers and it should be an eventful evening

Come and see us at MACH16

Powder Coating Course date announced - 25th May 2016

December IMFormation

AGM 2015

Just few photos from our 90th Anniversary Dinner.

A big thank you to all that attended IMFAIR 15. A few memories of the two days.

IMFair 2015 Countdown to Jun 9, 2015. Showing days, hours, minutes and seconds ticking down to 0

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