If every steel structure expresses unique personality, then color and coating are certainly among the distinguishing attributes. At New Millennium, there’s a set of experts who specialize in applying the right finishing touches to steel joists, joist girders, and steel deck. You could say they are steel building stylists.
Take the MARTA project in Atlanta. MARTA is the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which operates a city-wide network of bus routes linked to a rapid transit system consisting of 48 miles of rail track with 38 subway stations. A recent MARTA station rehabilitation called for the design and installation of a new pedestrian bridge, with a finished steel deck ceiling. That’s where the creativity of the team at New Millennium came in.
“Paint finishes are used to create a certain aesthetic but can also solve challenges,” says Skylar Luthi, a sales supervisor at New Millennium who often takes the lead on projects that involve coating. “The challenge with the East Lake Station at MARTA is they planned to build the bridge on the ground and then lift the completed structure into place. Naturally, the steel deck for the underside roofing needed to be pre-finished to avoid any painting in the field.”
The New Millennium steel deck of choice was Versa-Dek® 3.5 LS, which is known for the clean, smooth, lineal plank ceiling of its signature dovetail design. For the finish, Luthi consulted with the industrial coatings team at PPG, a leader in paints, coatings, and specialty materials for more than 140 years. Since the deck profiles needed to be painted before they were delivered to the project site, their deliberations centered on a pre-rolled, coil-coated finish from the PPG catalog.
For the sake of context, a paint is a coating, but not all coatings are paint — such as applying a zinc coating to galvanized steel. Coating refers to any material applied to the surface to provide protection and enhanced performance, not just for appearance. Finishing is even broader in scope, referring to the entire process of preparing and protecting the steel surface, which would include both painting and coating.
This is important to reiterate in an industry where some terms tend to be used interchangeably, according to Scott Frankert, Business Development and Strategic Project Manager for Industrial Coatings, Coil, at PPG. Luthi often turns to Frankert when New Millennium takes on a project that requires special finishing.
For coil-coating projects like the pedestrian bridge at MARTA’s East Lake Station, pre-paint and post-paint are also fundamental terms.
“Pre-paint comes with several requirements, as the painted steel product needs to be flexible enough to be formed into a component but also robust enough to withstand the demands of transit and installation,” says Frankert.
For coil-coated finishes, the coil can be coated before being rolled into a deck profile shape or perforated for acoustics or aesthetics. In addition to saving time in the field, this pre-paint process often produces the most durable finish and is more corrosion-resistant than some post-painted metal.
The paint system used for MARTA is PPG Duranar® XL, which is a primer with a Polyvinylidene Difluoride (PVDF) basecoat, followed by a PVDF clearcoat. This premier PPG system meets the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance/American Architectural Manufacturers Association (FGIA/AAMA) 2605 performance standard requested by the engineer of record (EOR) on the project. FGIA/AAMA 2605 is a recognized high-performance criteria for coatings applied to aluminum extrusions and panels for architectural products.
“Typical pre-paint application meeting FGIA/AAMA 2605 is between 1 and 1.5 mils of paint total, which is fairly thin,” explains Frankert. “If you’re looking at a post-paint system, your topcoats will be running between 2 and 4 mils. With pre-paint, you’re getting a similar or same level of performance with half the paint thickness, so the efficiencies range from processing and installation to materials since less is required to meet performance standards.”
From the paint partner to the architect and fabricator to the procurement team, Luthi says education and communication are key to specifying the right system for the owner or developer. Of course, MARTA is just one of many projects that requires the New Millennium team to explore the paint on steel possibilities.
“Choosing the right coating depends on many project variables” says Luthi.
When it comes to color options, steel deck can match the colors specified by the project’s architect. For example, to get the desired color for the roof deck used on Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, New Millennium collaborated with the owners of the Texas Rangers, HKS Architects, and fabricator W&W Steel. The result was a clay-colored roof with a background that makes fly balls easier for fielders to see. For MARTA’s East Lake Station, the customer choice was Swirling Smoke from PPG’s Duranar® solid color collection.
For all types of finishes, warranties are important to end customers. The New Millennium and PPG teams work closely on contract details at the outset to help prevent any need for clarification or adjustment later. It’s another advantage, according to Luthi, to having a strong partnership with a trusted paint provider.
“This partnership has also helped us recognize opportunities when pre-painting would add efficiencies to a project,” says Luthi. “Having to paint the underside of a roof deck in the field can be quite complicated and costly. We can introduce the idea and back it up with real-world performance data.”
Case in point; the new 35,000-seat stadium at Northwestern University will use 12,000 tons of steel. A portion of its steel deck requires a paint coating. With its pre-painting capabilities, New Millennium will help the institution avoid the need – and added costs – of field painting. That value-add has led to New Millennium becoming the sole steel deck supplier for the project.
“We work with our fabricators from start to finish,” explains Luthi. “At MARTA, we worked alongside Loadmaster and our quality control supervisor was out there watching the deck being roll-formed, making note of any need for minor touch ups.”
In the coil-coating world, the efficiencies of pre-painting are getting more and more attention. New Millennium has already been appealing to architects and interior designers with its IMPRESSIONS® steel deck, which features a realistic wood-grain finish brought to life through a revolutionary coil-coated digital printing process. As the creative applications of paint, coating, and finishing continue to evolve, Luthi and Frankert see the PPG-New Millennium partnership only growing stronger.
“With PPG as a partner, our ability to determine the most suitable finish for a particular project is fully in sync with our expertise in selecting the right steel deck,” says Luthi. “It’s all in our wheelhouse of being a leading supplier of steel joists and deck.”
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