Gloss on film laminated steel can now be specified, says Metalcolour

The normal method is to use a gloss meter measuring at a 60° angle, to ensure appropriate tolerances are achieved. However, gloss on embossed, film-laminated metal is much more difficult to measure, because of surface roughness, and even small variations will be visible to the human eye but not picked up by the measuring equipment. This means it is difficult for customers to specify the required gloss.

Metalcolour says that the gloss of film laminated metal on wall-, door- and ceiling-panels is a sensitive and complicated matter. Due to the fact that interior material for marine applications is frequently looked at from an angle, e.g. when looking along a corridor or into a cabin, the difference in gloss is often a much bigger problem than, for instance, colour differences. If one of the panels for a wall or the ceiling or an inspection-hatch differs in gloss it will become very noticeable by the passengers. Unfortunately, the gloss problems are not noticed until the ship is ready for delivery when the protective films are removed from the panels. At that time, however, it is often too late or too expensive to replace panels with different gloss.

Metalcolour says it has been working in close cooperation with film suppliers, measuring materials over a long period of time and has adjusted several parameters in its production. Metalcolour claims that a sufficient level of confidence has now been reached in order to guarantee a specific gloss tolerance for the company’s Dobel products.

“Most of the surface seen inside a passenger vessel consists of film-laminated steel, while the cost for the same is but less than a percent of the total cost for the ship. Investing in high quality film laminated metal is certainly an inexpensive way of ensuring a good looking interior”, comments Ingemar Forsberg, CEO of Metalcolour.